Project Summary
In recent years, “smart city” technologies have emerged that potentially allow cities, counties, and infrastructure agencies to manage their infrastructure assets more effectively, make their services more accessible to the public via web-based interfaces, and allow citizens to interface with new web- and mobile-based operators of alternative service providers, such as transportation network companies. Common examples include infrastructure-to-vehicle communications for autonomous vehicle systems, the automated sensing of bicyclists and pedestrians, and curbside management systems. At the same time, public and media attention on cybersecurity and privacy risks of these new technologies is increasing. Yet there is no known dataset measuring the uptake of such technologies by government agencies and members of the public. While a few private consultancies have created smart city “indices” combining some data on technology adoption with social, environmental, and economic indicators, the underlying methodology and data are proprietary and coverage is limited to very large cities. Further, the combination of indicators into single indices renders the data of little use for understanding patterns of technology uptake; and, for understanding the implications of technology adoption for areas of public concern, such as public health, equity, environmental quality and energy use.This project will develop an assessment methodology to guide data collection on the uptake and benchmarking of “smart city” technologies that improve the efficiency and transparency of urban transportation systems and other types of urban services in California. Researchers will refine a data collection strategy and pilot its use by assembling data on the uptake of smart city technologies in California, paying particular attention to transportation-related technologies. The preliminary strategy, to be refined through a piloting exercise, will involve surveying the heads of local government IT departments, interviews with public agency and other senior level staff, webscraping, and consultations with technology vendors in order to assemble municipal- and agency-level data patterns of technology uptake. The proposed methodology for assessing the adoption of “smart city” technologies in California will provide a means of understanding the extent to which new data is being generated through mobile devices and other smart city technologies, fundamental for considering the potential uses of such data for addressing issues such as social equity, air quality, greenhouse gas emissions, and traffic congestion.
