It’s always exciting to talk about how the biggest cities in the world are implementing new Smart City strategies. Chicago, London, Singapore and many others around the world are taking leadership roles in the global IoT, with test cases and economic development strategies focused on the data and technology that is designed to improve citizens’ daily lives and increase the cities’ efficiency and services.
And, although that leadership is needed, smaller municipalities have pressing needs than might be addressed with IoT and Smart City, but far less budget with which to implement them. Those challenges aren’t stopping the progress for the most forward-thinking communities, and instead is forcing them to be more creative and strategic.
In Onterio, Canada’s Region of Waterloo, the municipal government is working with eleven-x, operator of a Canadian coast-to-coast LoRaWAN Low Power Wide Area Network, on a new Smart City development project. In what they are calling the first IoT application of its kind in Canada, the Waterloo and eleven-x are testing real-time automated data collection from the Region’s water supply production and monitoring wells across the area. eleven-x’s network is designed to enable connectivity with low cost devices and has been tasked with providing the Region with real-time communication of the status of key parameters for managing the Region’s primary water supply sources.
“The value we gain in having well water data at our finger tips is tremendous for us in terms of decision-making,” said Eric Hodgins, Manager, Hydrogeology and Source Water, Region of Waterloo. “The technology may allow us to connect our wells directly with our water operations management system and give us the ability to advance the way we monitor and manage this crucial resource.”
About 75 percent of the water supply for the Region is derived from groundwater through a system of 132 large production wells extracting water from local sand, gravel and rock aquifers. The Region automatically captures data from a network of 585 monitoring wells to assess any impacts and provide information to manage its water supply sources. However, the data is only collected manually several times over the course of a year which results in delays in getting status information for each of the supply wells. These delays restrict the decision-making ability of the Region in terms of managing its water supply sources.
eleven-x is integrating its network with data logging devices to enable automated measuring and tracking of well water levels and temperature from select production and monitoring wells. Water data will be collected and communicated automatically on an hourly basis. Additionally, a newly added capability of event-driven real-time alerts based on pre-determined parameters, such as significant level fluctuations, will also be tested.
“Real-time updates on our wells will give us a better understanding of what is happening with our water supply sources and could really improve this key service we provide to the residents of our Region,” said Nancy Kodousek, Director, Water Services, Region of Waterloo. “The opportunity to reduce our costs is a real bonus.”
Far to the south, scientists for the City of Lakeland, Florida, have been manually monitoring lake levels in order to prevent flooding, which have been a time-consuming, resource-draining task, especially during the nearly four-month rainy season.
“Maintaining balanced water levels is critical to avoid flooding in residential areas and conserve enough water for the dry season,” said Laurie Smith, manager, Lakes and Stormwater Division, City of Lakeland. “Our technician has to drive back and forth between 11 lakes and make sure the levels don’t get too high.”
To monitor water levels more efficiently, the city has turned to Sensus, a Xylem brand, to help it leverage IoT technology and advanced connectivity. The Lakeland team has deployed the Sensus FlexNet system to create remote water monitoring stations at two lakes using the Sensus Smart Gateway sensor interface.
“Our FlexNet system had all we needed to build a remote monitoring solution, allowing us to reap tremendous cost savings from not having to implement new infrastructure,” said Smith.
With Smart Gateway and the FlexNet system, the City of Lakeland’s scientists are now able to collect water level data remotely in real time. Technicians can identify when lakes are at risk for flooding and drive directly to the affected lakes to open or close the installed flood control structures, saving time and operational costs.
“Initially, we weren’t sure if the solution was going to be accurate enough, but it exceeded our expectations,” said Smith. “We also appreciate how easy it was to use. We’re lake scientists, not technology people, and we’ve been able to quickly and seamlessly use the technology to improve our monitoring capabilities.”
With the successful pilot of the solution at two of the city’s lakes, the team now looks forward to deploying remote monitoring at the remaining nine lakes.
“The monitoring process used to take up the majority of our technician’s time during the work week, but now that time has been reduced dramatically,” said Smith. “We’re extremely pleased with the results of the pilot and are looking forward to having this system installed at all our lakes.”
In rural, Northwest Pennsylvania, the most immediate concerns aren’t about water, but about broadband connectivity. The Northwest Pennsylvania Regional Planning and Development Commission has said it will team up with Connected Nation to assess the current broadband environment across the Northwest Pennsylvania region and determine what can be done to improve connectivity for local residents, businesses, and other organizations. On June 5, the Northwest Pennsylvania Regional Broadband Committee kicked off its first Connected Community Engagement program in the state of Pennsylvania in order to study the current state of the issue.
“Comprehensive Broadband connectivity is as vital to our region’s economic success as roads and infrastructure were fifty years ago,” said Jill Foys, Executive Director of the Northwest Commission. “This study will provide the Northwest Pennsylvania region with an understanding of our communications assets as well as its gaps. As an area with an abundance of natural resources and activities that attract young people and families, we need the technological infrastructure to allow them to work where they play.”
Residents, businesses, and other organizations in the Northwest Pennsylvania Region (including counties of Clarion, Crawford, Erie, Forest, Lawrence, Mercer, Venango, and Warren) were invited to fill out a broadband survey here in order to help the Committee understand the status of broadband Internet access, adoption, and use across the region. After a structured assessment of the survey results, the Committee and Connected Nation will then develop a Technology Action Plan that will include specific actions and projects to effectively improve Northwest Pennsylvania’s broadband environment.
Much like in the business world, much innovation comes from the smaller organizations that are forced to work tighter and more efficiently than the bigger players. It would behoove any city planner, or enterprise company, to watch these and similar programs as they grow.
