The City of Cambridge and technology partners at IBM and Research In Motion recently unveiled a first of a kind system that will arm City staff with the tools they need to enhance Asset Management and related business processes for the municipality.
“Staying on the cutting edge of technological advancements is key to the success of running a municipality,” said Mayor Doug Craig. “Private sector firms have recognized the value of research and development for many years, and we are taking it into the public sector in ways that are brand new.”
Last June, Cambridge announced a pioneering collaboration with IBM to develop an integrated approach to rapidly combine information from different departments and apply the insight gleaned across all city departments. The system also allows private service providers working on various projects with the City to add to the information mix.
The IBM ‘Analytics for City Services and Safety’ (ACCESS) program now enables the City of Cambridge to compile, synchronize and better understand information from a variety of sources optimize capital spending to achieve the highest value in renewing our infrastructure. The result is better utilization of limited resources to sustainably improve quality of service.
“Combining IBM research innovation in predictive modeling and geo-spatial analysis with our business analytics software is helping unify city asset and service management for Cambridge ,” said John Longbottom, Smarter Cities Leader, IBM Canada. “Applying these kinds of technological advances allow smarter cities like Cambridge to be more intelligent as they use all sources of data to measure and influence more aspects of their operations.”
The City maintains some 250,000 critical Transportation and Public Works assets such as buildings, sewer systems and roadways across 50,000 locations. To support the field work at thousands of locations, RIM also offered their expertise.
BlackBerry PlayBook tablets will help the City deploy and retrieve information in a timely manner. Bringing mobile technology to crews in the fields will dramatically enhance their access to relevant information, improve accuracy and significantly reduce administrative overhead. Collectively, these changes will increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the City’s Transportation and Public Works Department.
“The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet provides an ideal mobile computing platform that allows governments to increase productivity and response times,” said Peter Fortune, Director, Strategic Alliances, Software & Services at RIM. “RIM is excited to be working with the City of Cambridge on this important project.”
Source: Cambridge Now