Innovative Solutions Addressing Traffic, Parking, Conservation, Connectivity and Mobility to Launch in Dallas

News provided by

Dallas Innovation Alliance

Jan 23, 2018, 12:00 ET


DALLAS (PRWEB) January 23, 2018 -- Dallas is not just growing fast, it’s also becoming a ‘smarter’ city. Six new programs designed to improve access, increase conservation, bridge the digital divide, and navigate through the city more easily will soon be integrated into the “Living Lab”, a corridor in the West End Historic District in Downtown Dallas.

The effort is led by The Dallas Innovation Alliance, a non-profit that brings the public and private sector together to design and execute a smart city strategy for Dallas. Smart cities use technology, data and community initiatives to increase economic development, resource efficiency and improve quality of life.

Projects announced today include:

  • Smart irrigation offering smart controllers that utilize weather data to improve water conservation and leak detection, at Dealey Plaza from partner HydroPoint Data Systems;
  • Smart water management, including metering to provide more granular interval data for customer conservation, as well as leak and tamper detection via water analytics dashboards from Itron;
  • Smart parking efforts with utilization, traffic flow and spot availability from Dallas startup ParkHub;
  • AT&T Smart Cities Digital Infrastructure powered by City IQ by Current delivering nodes with initial applications that will include “TrafficPulse,” “ParkingView” and “CitySight,” respectively;
  • Public Wi-Fi in the Living Lab led by the City of Dallas and powered by AT&T, Cisco, Nokia and Scientel Solutions; and a
  • Mobility initiative with Toyota Motor North America in South Dallas, currently in the research phase.

“It is only through key partnerships and the vision of the City of Dallas that we have been able to build the most robust and fastest-to-market smart city pilot in the country here in Dallas,” commented Jennifer Sanders, executive director, Dallas Innovation Alliance. “With the launch of this second phase of projects in the West End, Living Lab data will grow more robust and provide even better insights as we look to scale more broadly across the city.”

The Dallas Innovation Alliance Smart Cities Living Lab powered by AT&T launched in March 2017, and today the DIA works with more than 20 city departments and 30 partner organizations to create solutions to benefit the people of Dallas.

“Ultimately, a smart city works to solve city problems, conserve resources and create an inclusive and prosperous city; the technology itself is not enough without measurable insights provided by data,” said Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings. “The work of AT&T and the Dallas Innovation Alliance in building a Living Lab has provided a great platform to test and share results of projects that could broadly impact Dallas for the benefit of our citizens. We look forward to continued progress in creating a truly smart city for all of Dallas.”

“Investing in smart cities technology is a commitment to address the needs of citizens today and in the future,” said Mike Zeto, general manager, AT&T Smart Cities. “The City of Dallas is doing important work, testing solutions that can lead to improved public safety, citizen engagement and environmental sustainability. Key learnings from the Living Lab will prove invaluable as we work to scale these types of solutions to more cities across the country.”

The Dallas Innovation Alliance currently is working with leadership within the City of Dallas and Dallas County, as well as civic, academic and private sector partners to design additional projects for launch in 2018. This includes a mobility initiative in South Dallas in partnership with Toyota Motor North America.

“By creatively combining our know-how and resources and partnering with others, we can tackle problems that affect people’s ability to fulfill their potential and move in the world,” said Ryan Klem, who leads mobility programs for the Social Innovation team at Toyota Motor North America. “Together with Dallas Innovation Alliance, we look forward to deploying a mobility solution that helps improve quality of life for those in need in South Dallas.”

Initiatives announced today build on current projects including intelligent LED street lighting from GE and Philips, solar-powered environmental sensors from Ericsson, the Interactive Digital WayPoint kiosk from CIVIQ Smartscapes and pedestrian beacons from EB Systems.

Selected results for projects underway include:

  • Local West End businesses are utilizing data on foot traffic to best match marketing and operational investments to capture additional business. Revenue grew 16.9 percent year-over-year, and customer traffic data has shown nearly a 7 percent increase;
  • Decreases in crime are often seen as a result of factors including an increasing residential population, business activity and improved lighting. In the West End, crime has decreased 6 percent year over year [2016 vs. 2017]; and crime in December 2017 was down 27 percent from the same period in 2016;
  • The strongest example of operational savings and return on investment from the Pilot has been the Intelligent Streetlight Project, which saved 873 kW Hours in Q2 based upon installation of 23 lights in the Living Lab. Extrapolating these small-scale results to the full network of 85,000 streetlights in the city show a potential for millions of kW hours of energy saved annually on a citywide basis.
  • This Living Lab experience appears to show that replacing legacy lights with LED bulbs across the entire city network could save tens of millions of dollars over 10 years, which is a conservative life assumption for LED bulbs. The DIA is working closely with the City and Oncor to refine these calculations by focusing on specific factors, including capital and installation costs, O&M cost and labor parameters and to quantify additional operational efficiencies resulting from the intelligent controls system. The DIA appreciates the outstanding input from the front-line experts at the City, as well as our partners, who made this test and these findings possible.

Full second quarter results will be available this week on the Dallas Innovation Alliance website, at http://www.DallasInnovationAlliance.com.

About the Dallas Innovation Alliance
The Dallas Innovation Alliance (DIA) is a 501c3 public-private partnership dedicated to the design and execution of a smart cities plan for the City of Dallas, which integrates social, data and technology initiatives to accelerate economic growth, resource efficiency, and most importantly, improve quality of life for citizens. DIA is supported by an outstanding group of Partners, including: 2017-18 Organizational Partners AT&T and Toyota Motor North America; Pivotal Partner Cisco, Lead Partners Current, Powered by GE and Gardere; Partners AECOM, Granite Properties and Universal Mind; and Lead Community Partner United Way of Metropolitan Dallas. Members of the Dallas Innovation Alliance include: City of Dallas, Dallas County, Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART), Visit Dallas, Dallas Entrepreneur Center (DEC), Dallas Regional Chamber, Downtown Dallas Inc., The Real Estate Council (TREC), Texas Research Alliance, CIVIQ Smartscapes, Deloitte, EB Systems, entegra Technologies, Ericsson, IBM, Microsoft, ParkHub, Philips and Schneider Electric.

Jennifer Sanders, Dallas Innovation Alliance, http://www.dallasinnovationalliance.com, +1 (214) 865-6358, [email protected]