In Barcelona, the city has experienced a $58 million annual savings using smart water meter technology, according to Cisco.
The city of Songdo, in Incheon, South Korea, is a $35 billion, 1,500-acre private real estate development that has been built from the ground up by Gale International with Cisco as a technology partner. The city has cut energy and water use by 30% compared to what a similarly sized city would use without smart features, and has reduced what operating costs would normally be by regulating electricity and water usage in buildings.
“There are no wires, it’s all underground. There are no garbage trucks. All garbage is sent underground through a pneumatic process. In homes, parents can connect to schools and talk to teachers through telepresence,” Menon said.
Chicago uses predictive analytics to determine where to place bait for rats, by listing which dumpsters are most likely to be overflowing. The city is now 20% more efficient in controlling rats, said Tom
Schenk, chief data officer for the city of Chicago.
Predictive analytics are also being used to dispatch food inspectors to the
city’s 15,000 restaurants by using variables to predict which businesses are most likely to have code violations. In an 8-week trial of the program, restaurants with code violations were found two weeks faster, on average, than they would have been without predictive analytics, Schenk said.
Chicago is also on the cusp of having 50 sensors in place to alert the proper departments when bridges freeze, and to report the water quality in Lake Michigan. Other city groups are focusing on noise pollution and traffic congestion, said Brenna Berman, Chicago Department of Innovation and Technology (DoIT) commissioner and CIO.
