Building Data-Smart City Solutions

6 MINUTE READ

In their own words

Consultant: STEERING

Bill Davenhall

Former Global Manager, Health and Human Services

Esri Inc.

“A Smart City solution is not going to lie with the Amazons or IBMs or Dr. Watson or any of that, it’s going to rest in the hands of a community resource in which everybody in the community, profit and non-profit, can play a role.”

“Where in the world do you get such incredible information about how your community works or doesn’t work unless you have something like this.”

“The Sault Ste. Marie GIS approach is not even a solution, they are building an ecosystem.”

Jack Dangermond

President, Esri Inc. (2008)

“Sault Ste. Marie is the most comprehensive municipal/utilities GIS dataset in the world”

Cathy Simpson

Chair, Big Data Congress (BDC)

“Sault Ste. Marie is the shining beacon for the world’s communities to strive for.”

Doug Girvin

Stantive Technologies Group, Buffalo, NY

“Acorn has compiled one of the most comprehensive and intelligent utilities infrastructure databases in the world.”

PUC Services Inc., Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

“Our process considers all underground infrastructure and having current data really helps make a proper decision when it comes to infrastructure maintenance and upgrades"

“So, we think of this as a bigger planning picture, asset management, overall municipal infrastructure management, utility infrastructure management.”

“You don’t have to look too far in American Society of Civil Engineers Journals or American Waterworks articles to find information about the infrastructure crisis in North America, and the affordability of renewing roads, bridges, sewers, water mains. The power in GIS and shared data is to basically take all of these utilities, all of this utility infrastructure, service infrastructure, and overlay it.”

“What we did with the Innovation Centre - we built polygons around individual street blocks. And within that polygon, we can count the number of main breaks we’ve had. So, we can now rank all of the city blocks in the city very quickly with respect to break frequency.”

“Okay, now we can overlay that with lead services, that same section of road, we can say, how many lead services do we have, and how do we consider it in prioritizing projects?”

“Now for that same section, where we can overlay? What is the available fire flow? Is it adequate? Then we can look at it again and single in on the pipe diameter. How critical is that for infrastructure? What are the consequences of losing that particular pipe? And then the next iteration of this is to, through asset management plans and coordination with the city, we will very often piggyback on top of a city roadway construction project.”

“When you look at the entire selection process of which roads are we going to rebuild next, you could drive that decision solely with road surface condition - what kind of shape is the asphalt’s in? Is it suitable for traffic? Does need to be upsized or downsized? “

“But, do you also have adequate storm sewer condition? Adequate water main condition? This is where you can start to stack all this data up and look through the lens of every single utility. And when you see that combined view through all those lenses, then you have the horsepower, to make the best decisions about which roads to rebuild next and where to renew infrastructure most effectively.”

Joe Tevc
GIS and Records Technician, PUC Services Inc

“The GIS improves efficiency by allowing us to consolidate information into a central location for all data relevant to the PUC. Efficiencies are realized not only through access to multiple records from one source but in addition, updating records becomes a lot easier as well. Rather than printing out and issuing several revised hardcopies of a plan to several recipients, we can update hyperlinks on the GIS allowing all staff to have immediate access to the latest
records.”

“The GIS reduces the clutter of working with several different maps from several different sources by providing the user with a single source of information. From your desk or in the field you can access data covering several disciplines (Electrical, Water, Sewer etc.). The GIS provides information that was not typically captured in the past. It also gives you a geographical reference which, in many cases, allows you access to information that previously required field checks.”

“I would say previously the biggest benefit of the GIS was improved efficiency in data storage and data use. In the past twelve years however, I have seen the GIS evolve from a “simple tool” used for data capturing/storage to a powerful tool enabling us to not only store data but to also analyze and assess the data and then use the results for planning purposes. The GIS has become an asset used by a variety of staff members across different disciplines for many purposes other than simple data storage.”

Christian Provenzano
Mayor, Sault Ste. Marie

“Acorn puts the community in a really novel position. Back when we started this work decades ago, it may have been difficult to appreciate how important data would be to the future environment. Now that we’re looking at the current economy and working towards modernizing Sault Ste. Marie, we’ve got this strategic resource that we can use for the betterment of our community.”

“It was a really forward-looking decision and it’s paid off. Sault Ste. Marie is in a great position because we have the infrastructure in place to effectively collect, share and use our data.”

“All of our municipal operations – such as waste management collection and snow removal routes – should be based on data as a means of providing the most effective and cost efficient services possible.”

Andrew Hallett
Water Distribution Engineer,PUC Services Inc.

“Best practices for asset management are to use condition-based assessment to decide to replace or renew existing municipal infrastructure. The strength of our GIS is having all of the shared layers that can be put together to form a matrix that shows you the best value for all the combined sets of assets. This drives how we manage infrastructure.”

“Over the past decade, the SSM CIU has been leading the country in respect to the novel application of the use of spatial data with advances in transportation management, natural resource management, economic development, municipal governance and management, but, also, for the purpose of improving health and social services.”

Alex Miller
President/Founder, Esri Canada

“It’s like a great musician who spends a long-time practicing. They take that inherent intelligence and they create musical intelligence. It’s the same with gaining location intelligence and making it work. That’s what Acorn has done in Sault Ste. Marie. Because Acorn integrates everything by location, they can take information from everywhere that has a location - the sidewalks, the sewers, the land parcels, the impact assessment data, the demographic data from Stats Canada, and all health data. All that is integrated by the physics of everything being in the same location. The second thing that needs to be done, and Acorn has done extremely well, is build a community. Acorn has built an integrated community of organizations that have agreed to share their data with each other. And then when we bring it together, magic happens.”

“What is a smart city? It’s one that has its information stored and that its systems have learned about so there is the ability to analyze and communicate out what needs to be done through systems of collaboration.”