KCRag Forum

First real app I've seen that came from the KC Smart City initiative. It's a dashboard that shows realtime position of streetcar, traffic flow and available parking along the line, from various types of sensors. Also has timeline of history.

http://smartkcmo.xaqt.com/dashboard#/KC/publicTraffic

Recent TechCrunch article..
https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/07/kansa ... mart-city/

Also, KC is hosting a national smart city conference this week.
http://www.startlandnews.com/2017/02/ka ... onference/

That's pretty cool. Curious to follow up on its accuracy. Is there a way to discern direction they are heading besides refreshing?

KC still getting global attention as a Smart City..

Smart Cities 2017: Kansas City Is Well On Its Way
http://www.ibtimes.com/smart-cities-201 ... ay-2488874

Kansas City rolls out online map using traffic, parking data from sensors (integrated into Amazon's Alexa)
http://www.computerworld.com/article/31 ... nsors.html

Alexa can you turn on the walk signal for me at 12th and main?

KCPowercat wrote:Alexa can you turn on the walk signal for me at 12th and main?

the way public works pats themselves on the back with the auto ped detection you would think they'd have cured cancer.

Couple more blurbs...
https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/kansas ... t-corridor

http://fanvive.com/2017/02/08/kansas-ci ... -with-iot/

And another piece...
http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/ ... mart-city/

Le Frogs chime in too...
http://www.objetconnecte.com/kansas-city-smart-0802/

Curbed covers KC's Smart City project.

http://www.curbed.com/2017/2/17/1465071 ... an-planing

The kiosks are supposedly making $5K-$10K/month, apparently 20 more kiosks coming...

But the kiosks also function as new advertising terrain for the city. When they are standing idle, the screen alternates between city content and paid content every 30 seconds. When they're in use, the bottom third of the screen is reserved for advertisement.

All of the advertisement translates into new revenue for the city, which currently amounts to about $5,000 to $10,000 a month. But, Bennett said, interest suggests significant growth is coming -- enough to pay for kiosk maintenance and the expansion of the network.

The model has taken root with the Kansas City convention bureau, airport and University of Missouri-Kansas City lining up for the next 20 or so kiosks. "The good thing for us is that this system of kiosks is becoming an anticipated part of the landscape for Kansas Citians," Bennett said.

More KC coverage here..
http://searchcio.techtarget.com/news/45 ... ess-models

$3.7 million from the city for the initial project which included 25 kiosks.

That's $148000 per kiosk.
So that's

That's an extremely good return for any project.

flyingember wrote:$3.7 million from the city for the initial project which included 25 kiosks.

That's $148000 per kiosk.
So that's

That's an extremely good return for any project.

the cost includes more than just the kiosks:

* new LED street lights and sensors (which do live pedestrian and vehicle counts)
* rhythm engineering's dynamic traffic signal control (in addition to the basic signal priority system funded by streetcar)
* automatic pedestrian detection (which interfaces with rhythm)
* public and private wifi (all of the sensors and kiosks run on private wifi)

streetcar paid for the fiber conduit in the track slab that enables the wifi.

My point wasn't to be thorough but to show that the kiosks can pay for the city's cost of everything they paid for in around two years and this helped leverage private money while doing it.

That's smart use of tax dollars no matter who paid for what.

In Search of the Smartest City
https://www.citylab.com/tech/2017/03/in ... ty/521019/

Bloomberg Philanthropies is starting a certification for smart cities (like LEED certifications). Cert levels of cities that apply will be announced this Fall.

Kansas City, Missouri, is notable for taking a systematic approach to organizing and publishing open data. (Dave Kaup/Reuters)

This article explains more useful outcomes from data collected along streetcar line...

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/big ... d-traffic/

Kind of a big deal in Smart City world... KC wins Gold Edison Award for most advanced 'Connected Collaboration' - an international competition considered the 'Oscars of Innovation'...

Validating a bold technology plan by a variety of public and private organizations, Kansas City’s Smart City initiative recently won a prestigious Edison Award for innovation.

The City of Kansas City, Mo., Sprint, Cisco, Think Big Partners and other organizations won a gold award in the category of connected collaboration from the Edison Awards in New York City on April 20. The organization noted that by deploying “the most extensive coordinated suite of connective WiFi technology and analytical platforms in the world” the Smart City effort enhances citizens’ experiences in downtown and improves the delivery of city services.

The Smart City just wrapped up phase one. In the last year, the city has established 328 WiFi access points, 178 smart lighting video nodes and 25 smart kiosks, laying the foundation on which the city can begin to collect data on downtowners’ behavior. In February, the city released its open data platform, which provides citizens live and historical information on the streetcar, traffic flow and parking availability in downtown.

For phase two, the Smart City Advisory board plans to form a cohesive understanding of its goals and to articulate the return on investment the initiative has for the city. The board hopes that, as a result of establishing performance indicators, it can more easily partner with other public and private organizations.

The award could make it easier to attract more future partners.

http://www.startlandnews.com/2017/04/ka ... son-award/
http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n ... ation.html

I hope it is used to attract more future partners, and I'm always glad for the city to get recognition. However, right now, most of the "smart city" and "connected city" stuff is just smoke and mirrors. The real connected and innovative cities of tomorrow may spend less time creating glossy photos and graphics for awards presentations and more time perfecting/making the best use of the technology they have implemented. It sounds like a huge amount of the focus in the "smart city" sphere right now is on brochures and presentations. Sure, we have public wifi, but how many people use it daily? Sure we have sensors, but how have they increased efficiency? In my opinion, claiming we are the world's most connected smart city is a joke. Have they been anywhere in Japan? Do they have any idea the security apparatus that exists in NYC or so many cities in Europe? So much of our claims to innovation come from the fact we have a streetcar. We act like we have the first streetcar to exist, and the thing can't even tell you when it is supposed to arrive accurately (I love the streetcar and think it was delivered brilliantly, btw).

From what I hear, KC is doing a good job positioning itself to be an innovator moving forward, but so far, all we have in the "wow factor" department are Google Fiber and a bunch of plans for things that would be nice "for Kansas City." I'm really excited for the future in KC, and I think our size could be an advantage in being first to market in a lot of areas, but being among the first to market is often mistaken for innovation. Right now, we appear to be surfing trends and selling ourselves to innovators, rather than being innovators ourselves. We have few plans to move forward without relying on a huge company to sweep in and wave a magic wand. This isn't just a KC issue, and I'd rather be KC than many other similar sized communities, but this type of award reminds me of the fluff from Silicon Valley:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-GVd_HLlps

You're focused on hardware when the hard part of IT is software.

How many of London's security cameras are used to feed other data sources? Like can the city use them tell if a street gets trash service later than normal, count peds or such?

I agree, though I'm not sure what you took to be hardware-centric from my comments. Sensors are nothing without software to make sense of the data, and right now, I've not seen the realization (through reality or presentation) of any analytics software that can make effective use of the data that will be/is currently captured in our city. Knowing there is a traffic jam is different from proactively staggering the lights based on machine learning/AI/algorithms/etc. The framework is important, but almost the exact same project is happening right now in every other larger sized city. Public wifi, a network of sensors, a database to collect the sensor data, a platform to make sense of the data (no mention of the workflows needed to bridge the human/software gap, though), enabling driverless cars, etc. The brochures and videos are almost all the same. I've been in enough software presentations to know how large the gap can be between what is shown in graphics and nice videos and what it actually takes to get meaningful use of a new implementation. A lot of work is required well beyond the "we have software installed" phase, especially when software is developed to enable open-ended capabilities.

Whatever we end up with will be a network of sensors, a series of management interfaces, multiple bolt-ons to ingest and make sense of data, and multiple platforms to enable workflows and alerting to address logical limits placed on the sensors and relationships between various data points. But this is the same framework as every other city with a "smart" program. Until someone can put real metrics behind what they have been able to accomplish, beyond just what is possible, the "smarts" behind the city are unknown. I think we are headed in the right direction and doing the things that need to be done to get to that point (from what I hear), but I find it hard to believe we are the "world's most connected smart city," as described in the video.

The 'smart city' initiatives are still fairly nascent and may take another 5+ years to have comprehensive real world benefits. You have to build the infrastructure and frameworks first, the applied benefits will eventually follow. Think about when the first home computers came out in the 70s/80s and weren't very useful for most avg joe people at first. Then some useful apps came out, then when internet connected the PC world exploded. KC has a 'smart city' leg up over most cities and if it continues to draw attention through such awards, etc, it could draw more partners. Though next or future mayor could easily put a halt to it all.

The bigger concern is tying utilities/public infrastructure to the internet. Much public infrastructure is already alarmingly connected for the most part but the smart city momentum will likely interconnect these systems to a much higher degree and cities will need to be careful to only allow read-only access to useful information and not 'control' of utilities and infrastructure, whether directly, indirectly or allowing for any backdoor holes. (Insert Skynet reference here.)

Privacy is another concern on individual level. That is what they do with collected data and cross reference with other Big Data sources, such as identifying your cell phone/tablet passing between public WiFi hotspots even if you don't connect to the network. Shopping malls already do this and will likely expand to city wide tracking. They can tell what stores you go to, how long in each, if going to restroom - just by having WiFi turned on but not connected. While they don't personally identify you, with Big Data across other sources it will eventually be possible. Smart cities will be able to take it many steps further/broader for better or worse.

It's coming whether we like it or not, may as well have a leg up on it and participate in the challenges and likely need for regulatory controls.

Whether the impact of KC pursuing 'smart city' innovation is effective or not, is good to get constant buzz. KC is often mentioned in 'smart city' articles in general as a reference point...

http://tech.co/smart-cities-linknyc-wif ... co-2017-05