Smart Cities

The new 2023 Shared Micromobility State of the Industry Report finds slightly more people made use of it in the U.S. last year — even as the number of devices in service fell by more than 3.5 percent.

The city’s CIO has said he would like to have a policy on artificial intelligence in place by year’s end. As officials work to make that happen, they’re looking at similar policies from Seattle and Boston, and in private industry.

Recent data walks, and the city’s newly launched digital rights platform, inform residents on how city technologies collect their personally identifiable information, and how it is stored.

A new report on micromobility ridership in 2023 from the National Association of City Transportation Officials examines trends in the use of shared bikes and scooters, in the U.S. and Canada.

The new program, which the public can access online, maps crimes in the city using 15 icons to show arson, assault, burglary, vandalism and vehicle burglaries. It retains data for up to 180 days, though precise locations are not shown.

GreenWealth Energy and Voltpost will expand low-speed, dwell charging at multifamily housing locations and curbside, to make electric vehicles a more workable solution for renters and people with lower incomes.

SouthWest Transit, which serves three of the city’s suburbs, will debut the area’s first autonomous vehicles this fall in Eden Prairie. For now, the service will operate with human drivers on board.

In a forecast, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council warns data centers could use up to 4,000 megawatts on average of electricity by 2029 — enough to power the entire city of Seattle five times over — setting up potential shortfalls.

The cities of Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse collectively received funding via a “tech hub” competition run by the U.S. Economic Development Administration. They’ll use it to develop an area semiconductor industry.

Cities are no longer seeing their miles of streetscape as cheap parking spaces. Curbs are now considered some of the most in-demand pieces of urban real estate, and technology is stepping up to help manage them.

Some 75 percent of low-income residents in Philadelphia, for example, say that they cannot afford to pay more than $21 a month for a broadband subscription.

City officials said Tuesday they had deployed the first 100 cameras; the other 300 are expected to be on the street by July. The devices, paid for by a $17 million state grant, are intended to take on organized retail theft.

Ruling that the Fourth Amendment protects a person’s right to privacy, a Norfolk Circuit Court has granted a defendant’s motion to suppress evidence obtained by city-owned license plate reader cameras, but without a search warrant.

The Autonomous Robotic Pickup Platform, a project launching next week in Detroit’s Transportation Innovation Zone, will start by testing small sidewalk delivery bots to collect food waste for compost.

The two cities submitted the winning applications for the 2024 Mobility Insights Competition, organized by Lime and the League of American Bicyclists. The municipalities can now use Lime’s data to address mobility issues.

Recreational drone flights are, generally, legal in the Pacific Northwest city. However, hobbyists looking to fly in city parks must secure permission from the city parks director. Much the same is true in Pierce County, which includes Tacoma.

In 15 years as CIO and director of Information Technology Services, his work was foundational to internal areas like information security — but also to resident-facing services like 311 and free Wi-Fi.

The Environmental Protection Agency has warned against hackers affiliated with Iran and China who could sabotage drinking and wastewater resources — attacks it said are increasing in severity and frequency.