Next American City » Columns » Real-time Data: A Recipe for Happier Citizens

There are certain things in life that most everyone would avoid if they could. Things like sitting in traffic, waiting in a slow-moving line at a government office, or searching for a non-existent parking space. One could argue that these are just a face of modern life in 21st century cities. However, there’s enormous potential for governments to provide data – particularly live real-time data feeds – to help citizens eliminate some of these unpleasant experiences from our everyday lives.

One of the most basic is the web camera feed. To help state residents avoid a lengthy wait at the local DMV office, the Alaskan Division of Motor Vehicles publishes web cam images of the waiting area from each of its offices. Taking the idea a step further, the Singaporean government has created an online “queue watch” website for area health clinics. Citizens can go online and see the number of patients waiting, along with live web camera images of queues at registration and the pharmacy. In addition, the site uses this data to recommend off-peak periods to visit.

Aside from cameras and queues, one of the main areas that governments are looking to provide real-time data is travel. In the San Francisco Bay Area, a new pilot program has just launched to give commuters information about their travel options between San Jose and San Francisco. Called Networked Traveler, the website allows visitors to enter an origin, destination, and travel time – and provides estimates of travel time, cost and carbon emissions between driving, bus and commuter train using real-time data. In addition, the site provides real-time availability data at select park and ride lots. An accompanying mobile phone application means commuters can check their options on the go.

As more cities install cameras and sensors to collect data about what’s happening on the ground (as well as under and above it), the opportunities for real-time data feeds will only grow. Hopefully, more cities will take advantage of this and provide their citizens with access to this kind of information. Provided that people can use it to avoid wasting a couple hours – they’ll be all the happier.

The Internet IS a Series of Tubes: Real-Time Mapping of the London Underground | ReadWriteWeb

Two of our favorite topics to geek out over here at ReadWriteWeb are the real-time Web and the Internet of Things. Today, we (like everyone else across the Internet, it seems) ran into a rather nifty looking website that merges those two realms rather successfully using open data from the London and U.K. train systems. The live train map for the London Underground is a nearly real-time Google Maps mashup that shows the various trains of the London Underground as they move about their subterranean travels. The real-time Web, put simply, is a set of technologies that allows the information we see on the Internet to change as quickly (or nearly so) as what it represents in the real world or online. It’s the weather forecast, your friends’ status updates on Facebook and the pitch-by-pitch tracking of an afternoon’s game. As for the Internet of Things, it is the connection of the Internet to everyday objects. In this case, it’s data on every train in the London subway system as provided by the London Data Store, an open-data effort with the Greater London Authority.

Visualizing a smarter city | A Smarter Planet Blog

Cities generate the vast bulk of the world’s CO2 emissions, and they account for 60 percent of all water allocated for domestic human use. As urbanization levels increase, how do city leaders ensure continuing water and energy supplies – while also promoting environmental sustainability? If you ask me, a good place to start is by making sure local utilities, government agencies, businesses and citizens alike are looking at the same information when making decisions about collective and individual energy use.

spime:

Urban sensing via mobile phones explores approaches to sensing the presence of mobile phones in transit environments (bus, train, ferry etc.) as well as pedestrians, in order to provide real-time data on such activity, potentially informing urban planning and transport planning decisions. Such approaches might reveal how the city is being used, in real-time.