In this video and article, we are going to explore how our software can be used for your smart city project – to make your community or city truly data-driven.

Smart City Project Concept

What is a Smart City Project? This is a project meant to collect data from people, devices and other sources to manage your city’s assets and resources more efficiently.

These projects pull together information and communication techologies as well as the Internet of things.

According to Wikipedia, It is estimated that the global market for smart urban services will be $400 billion per annum by 2020.

Smart City Project Challenges

People trying to implement a smart city project face a number of challenges. Foremost among these challenges are:

  1. Data Fragmentation: The data needed for a successful smart city are scattered across multiple devices, computers, systems and even people.
  2. Custom Solution Expense & Maintenance: Custom programmed smart city software solutions are expensive, time consuming to build, prone to bugs, hard to maintain and are often dependent on the original programmer to keep the software working.

Our Smart City Software Solutions

We offer a range of software solutions that can be used for your smart city project. Here are some of our software along with some initial ideas for using them for your smart city project:

  1. DataPoint: Can be used to create real-time dashboards showing a range of data from nearly any source. DataPoint acts as a data “bridge” to connect multiple sets of data from different devices and sources together and to create reports.
  2. iPoint or SignageTube: You can use iPoint or SignageTube to manage your digital signage playlists city-wide.
  3. CounterPoint: Manage your waiting rooms and people lineups in your city facilities using our CounterPoint “take a number” type software.
  4. VideoPoint: Connect real-time web cams, video cameras and IP camera feeds and show them anywhere. This could be used to show traffic, weather, events, nature, construction zones or anything of interest to city residents.

Informing the Public

Communicating with city residents is key for any city administration. Digital signage is fantastic way to keep your residents informed. You can use computer monitor screens or tv’s:

  • in city facilities
  • outside of city buildings
  • in public squares

Emergency Messaging

In addition to normal updates to your citizens, your smart city project digital signage becomes critical in emergency situations. Think of emergencies like:

  • fire
  • flood
  • earthquakes
  • storms, tornados, hurricanes
  • heavy snowfalls
  • air quality warnings
  • toxic spills
  • major disease outbreaks
  • or Amber alerts

In the event of any of these emergencies, your emergency digital signage can be used to:

  • keep people informed as to the nature of the emergency
  • calm people’s fears
  • give instructions on what to do in the emergency
  • provide evacuation instructions if needed
  • request volunteer help
  • request blood donations
  • request needed supplies and more

 

City Events

Many cities are known for their festivals and events and these events add a richness to the lifes of residents in their city. You can use digital signage to let residents know about upcoming:

  • markets
  • concerts
  • art and culture activities
  • workshops
  • charitable fundraisers
  • town hall meetings and other events

Real-Time Traffic Monitoring

You can use your smart cities project digital signage to show:

  • traffic news
  • real-time traffic maps
  • scheduled construction locations

This lets people plan their daily commute so they can avoid the most congested areas.

Transit Routes in Real-Time

Use digital signage to show all your public transit routes (bus, trains, ferries) as well as the real-time location of the bus, train or ferry at any time.

City Performance Dashboards

What are your city’s KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators)? You can create city performance dashboards to show key performance indicators in real-time to show how well your city is performing.

Key performance indicators might include:

  • attendance at festivals and cultural events
  • commercial projects value
  • building permits issued
  • historical building preservation numbers
  • town hall participants
  • resident satisfaction
  • poverty rate
  • voter turnout
  • median household incomes
  • unemployment rate
  • number of new businesses
  • number of new jobs created and more

No matter what KPIs you decide to monitor for your city, our software can be used to keep your residents informed of your performance.

Social Media Connections

The world has become social! Show tweets about your city and events in real time. Show your Facebook likes proudly at all your facilities using our software.

Internet of Things

More and more pieces of equipment are becoming internet-connected. For cities, this might include equipment like:

  • traffic monitors
  • waste management trucks
  • construction equipment
  • snow plows
  • street sweepers
  • buses and trains
  • water treatment facilities
  • emergency responders

Our software lets you create real-time equipment monitoring dashboards, so you can see at a glance the status of your equipment, people and facilities.

Building & Equipment Monitoring

Smart cities can use the Internet to monitor their equipment – in their building or across the city.

Here is an example of a equipment monitoring dashboard created in PowerPoint. In this case, our client used DataPoint to connect this dashboard to their equipment output in real time.

The dashboard shows the location of the equipment. Equipment that is functioning well shows in green and equipment that is struggling shows in red.

The meters on the lower left show the output of each machine.

In the top right, the error messages for each machine are shown. In the bottom right is a list of upcoming scheduled maintenance.

City Program Information

Many cities offer great programs to help their residents, but how do you let the public know about these programs?

Using smart digital signage, you can display information about your programs on any city-owned or public monitor. These can be in city facilities, waiting rooms, recreational facilities or on the sides of buildings.

You can show information about:

  • food banks
  • health services
  • mental health services
  • educational programs
  • recreational opportunities and more
Smart City Project - City Program Information

City Meeting Management

You can also use smart city initiatives to promote and manage city meetings. Here is an example where Winter Springs has a queue management system set up to show which speaker will be speaking next and how much time is left in their allotment.

Work Space Management

Other clients use our software to show which work spaces are open so people know where they can set up and work.

Live Conference Room Calendar

Our software can also be used to create live conference room calendars so you can see which meeting rooms are open and available for use.

City Weather Warnings and Forecasts

Smart digital signage is a great way to share weather forecasts and weather warnings with the public in city faciliaties and on outdoor digital signage.

City News

Fight fake news. Show the real news that affects your city on your own broadcasting system.

Smart City Project - City News

City Facilities Queue Management

Do you have waiting areas where people have to wait their turn to access a service or facility? Our CounterPoint software makes it easy to let people know when it is their turn to come to the counter. People can wait patiently, confident that they will be served soon as they see the numbers being served coming closer to theirs.

Menu Boards at City Facilities

Do some of your facilities offer food and snacks for patrons? You can easily create menu boards and update them from a central location.

Video Walls

Imagine pulling together multiple TV screens together to create a video wall with your message. With VideoPoint, this is easy to do.

Windows & PowerPoint Compatable

Instead of forcing you to learn custom software and hardware, we have created our software and solutions to work with standard Windows and PowerPoint. You can use our software on Windows desktops, laptops tablets, or stick PCs so all these can be easily supported by your in-house or local IT people.

Next Steps for your Smart City Project

Want to get started on your own Smart City project? Contact us and we would be happy to help!

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