NEW YORK -- What are the latest innovations -- especially high tech "apps" -- to make today's cities succeed?
A host are being applied or waiting in the wings. They include new forms of electronic measurement to track and channel traffic, monitor potential crime sites, check on water quality, gauge the energy use in "smart grids," and much more.
Will the new "apps" change the way cities look in a decade or two? Not on the surface, Wired Magazine senior editor Nicholas Thompson suggested at the eminent Regional Plan Association's yearly assembly here last week, attended by 700 civic and business leaders from the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut metro area.
But the technologies have the potential, Thompson and others said, to improve dramatically the convenience and safety of cities, plus cutting their costs.
Some already have good track records -- for example electronic monitoring for location, time and frequency of criminal incidents. Pioneered in New York City, often combined with community policing, the geographic positioning is already undergirding improved law enforcement in cities nationwide.
Private sector initiatives help too. Zipcar, the decade-old firm that lets its 300,000-plus users access a nearby street-parked car for an hour or day's use, is spreading fast to cities nationwide. Car reservation is by an especially user-friendly Internet site or a new iPhone app. Sixty percent of users sell their own cars or abandon plans to buy one, freeing up street space. There are already some Boston and Washington neighborhoods where 25 percent of residents are subscribers, Zipcar president Mark Norman told the New York meeting.
Now more high-tech power is falling into individuals' hands. Take bus and subway schedules. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, serving the Boston area, has recently moved to release not just schedules, but real-time GPS-generated data on upcoming arrival times for its vehicles, reports the authority's innovation director, Christopher Dempsey.
Sensing how popular this instant data might be for riders, a wave of Massachusetts web entrepreneurs -- some hoping for eventual profit, some just to show their prowess -- are grabbing the raw data feed and processing it to varied user-friendly forms for websites, iPhone apps, desktop widgets, even signs near bus stops.
Potentially the country's biggest hi tech app could be VMT (vehicle miles traveled) data, electronically monitored by a device in each American's motor vehicle. A 21st century substitute for the gas tax, VMT charges could even be increased or lowered by time of day, spreading out traffic flows, reducing congestion -- and fuel use.
VMT monitoring could also facilitate congestion pricing -- for example the high daytime fees for private autos in traffic-clogged Manhattan that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the Regional Plan Assn. supported, but the state legislature, succumbing to suburban opposition, rejected.
Could tracking devices, however economical and efficient, intrude on Americans' rights of privacy by pinpointing their personal movements? That's a frequently heard complaint -- but an overdrawn one, the conferees heard. George Orwell was precisely wrong in his famed book, 1984, predicting increased technology would feed "Big Brother" authoritarian government, noted the RPA's Julia Vitullo-Martin. The reality, she said, has been the opposite- technology drives decentralized government and democratization of data.
Plus, others noted, software can be designed to erase site-specific information once the essential data is collected.
Imaginative new technologies by recent start-up firms were featured at the conference. A top example: "ShotSpotter." Whenever a gun is fired in sensor-equipped areas (typically cities' high crime neighborhoods), the sound is captured, pinpointed geographically (within 80 feet), and communicated to a command post for risk and threat analysis. Police response can follow within seconds, compared to frequent delays and inaccurate 911 call-in information.
Cities achieve 20 to 40 percent gun murder reduction using his service, Shotspotter president James Beldock claimed. With rapid response, there aren't just more arrests but also higher survival rates of shooting victims.
A firm named RecycleBank claims a dollars-and-sense way to help reduce the literal mountains of cities' solid waste that's often carried hundreds of miles to landfills by heavy (and polluting) 18-wheeler trucks. RecycleBank provides homeowners incentives to recycle paper, plastics, glass and metals that it's able to market. The operative device: a chip in a specially designed home trash bin that records the residence's weight of recycled materials. The homeowner receives points to use at local businesses -- about $250 a year.
And then there's "GreenRoad" -- an in-vehicle electronic device that senses dozens of driving events (acceleration, cornering, braking -- 120 in all). The device provides the driver with instant feedback (red-yellow-green light), and then transmits the data by cellular modem for a weekly report of the driver's skills and needs.
One can imagine "GreenRoad" technology averting crashes, saving lives, making streets far safer -- one more example of technology's exciting potential for today's cities.
