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Smarter Cities on a Smarter Planet

Driving sustainable growth and prosperity through the strategic use of technology

Smarter Cities on a Smarter Planet

Highlights

Use information that is distributed across the city to gain insight and support more informed decision making Predict challenges to enable proactive responses in public safety, traffic, energy, public health and other day-to-day challenges Coordinate resources across the entire system of city systems to achieve better outcomes for all citizens Compete successfully for municipal funds, talent and business resources to improve sustainable growth

Most city leaders dont have adequate budgets to address all of their citys challenges and achieve their primary objectiveto increase prosperity for their citizens. It is becoming more difficult to create great centers of business and culture, promote strong education and health services and grow in ways both dynamic and sustainable. Technology can help.

Solutions for a Smarter Planet

Within governments and businesses, there is no shortage of data. Whats needed now is the right technology to turn all that information into insight for making strategic decisions and enabling proactive responses. We follow a consistent process for helping cities leverage the IBM Smarter Planet solutions. Heres how:

More than 50 percent of the people on Earth live in cities. These growing population centers must provide the economic, governmental, cultural and technological power for a global urban age. For the last 100 years, IBM has worked with cities and their leaders to improve the delivery of services and help citizens, businesses and governments to prosper. In recent forums worldwide, IBM invited city leaders to come together to discuss the challenges related to urbanization and globalization. We listened as hundreds of leaders shared the challenges of managing urban centers today.

Urban centers challenges

The challenges city leaders face call for exceptional creativity and innovation. Global competition for funding, energy and talent is requiring leaders to do more with less. Economic pressures are reducing the funds city leaders can use to deliver services. And aging infrastructures create waste and inefficiencies throughout city operations. This waste is extremely expensive for cities. For example, research shows that water leakage costs water utilities worldwide US$14 billion every year. American drivers each year waste an estimated 3.7 billion hours, the equivalent of five days, sitting in traffic burning 2.3 billion gallons of fuel. And in Europe, traffic congestion costs the European Union over 1 percent of GDP, or over 100 billion Euros per year. And today cities consume an estimated 75 percent of the worlds energy and emit more than 80 percent of greenhouse gases.

First, we look to drive insights by managing data more effectively. We can now collect information about more parts of the city than ever before, and we bring together a more holistic picture of city agencies and results. Next, we analyze patterns in the data to see if we can identify trends and predict problems before they arise. Moving from reactive mode to proactive mode is a key strategy for achieving more intelligent operations. And finally, we look for ways to optimize outcomes and results in our cities by integrating and coordinating the work done by all individuals and groups throughout the city. Armed with these insights and predictions, we can help significantly improve outcomes.

This strategy can deliver dramatic improvements in city performance and efficiency, enabling city leaders to spend more time focusing on their most important goals.

Insightful decision making

What are some new, better ways to use information to make more insightful decisions? Information can come from anywherefrom simple databases that exist across your city to more complex sources of information. For example, we have even put sensors under manhole covers to measure the flow of the material beneath. When the flow under the covers slows too significantly, it can indicate that something might be blocking that section of the system. Identifying and fixing the problem early is helping to prevent sewer overflows and floods.

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Managers in Corpus Christi, Texas, put the data from all of their sewer calls on a map. Only then did they realize that a third of the problems went though one section of their system. That insight enabled them to find and repair the leaks and breaks. As a result, the number of subsequent repair calls fell by a third. In Alameda County, California, social services agencies needed a single view of the client so that all departments could work together more effectively. After achieving this goal, they were able to identify waste and fraud while delivering better service, resulting in savings of US$24 million a year.

At the same time, the city leaders developed a system for viewing the status of the transportation system throughout all modes of transport. With this coordinated view, transportation leaders can adjust schedules to accommodate problems in part of the system. For example, if a train is running slightly behind schedule, a bus can be held for a few minutes to pick up passengers. This intentional slight delay in the system can prevent a much larger backup from materializing.

Building smarter cities today

To increase prosperity and sustainability and foster productive growth, mayors and city leaders around the world are implementing interconnected technologies. As a result, their smarter cities are becoming better places to live, work and drive innovation. As these smarter cities develop, competition for talent and resources will only increase. The winners will be the cities that act now and set themselves up to become centers of productive growth. IBM can help your city achieve its goals for smarter operations and delivery of services. We have a wealth of insights gained from our extensive global events and citizenship projects. Our broad solution capabilities can be tailored to the needs of your city.

Predictions for better outcomes

In the past, our data models on the future predicted long-term trends over days, weeks, or years. Now, because we can manage so much data, and we can process it so fast, we can look at traffic and predict what it will look like in an hour. We can look at weather patterns that are coming in and predict where we are likely to have fallen power lines within a square kilometer. The city of Richmond, Virginia, had a significant problem with violent crime. In fact, Richmond was in the top ten most dangerous cities in the U.S. two years in a row. IBM helped Richmond to analyze its crime data and enhance their ability to predict when and where crime was most likely to occur. After the city aligned its resources to the areas that were most likely to experience crimes, the crime rate dropped 32 percent the first year, and 40 percent the second year, dropping Richmond from the top ten to the 99th position.

Why IBM? Why now?

IBM provides an unmatched breadth of capabilities and ecosystems, including the worlds largest private research organization. We invest US$6 billion a year in research and development to make our world work better. Throughout thousands of successful engagements worldwide, we have helped cities to compete and drive sustainable growth and prosperity for allhelping them work smarter.

Coordinating resources
Today, not only can we connect people and integrate data, we can manage processes and workflows to coordinate and optimize resources. In Singapore, for example, city leaders wanted to improve the experience of the five million people who move across the city each day. They wanted to make it as fast and convenient as possible to get from one destination to another and use, as necessary, multiple modes of transportation. IBM worked with the city to develop an integrated means of payment for transportation. People across Singapore can now use the same payment card for trains, busses and other means of transport.

For more information

To learn more about IBM Smarter Cities solutions, please contact your IBM marketing representative or visit: ibm.com/smartercities

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