THE CITY AS DATA

THE CITY AS DATA

The city can be understood as invisible grids and overlapping networks made up of vast quantities of data from sources as varied as surveillance cameras, automobile and other transportation GPS data, RFID sensors, open GIS, map and traffic data, WiFi antennae, the mobile Internet, energy consumption and carbon output data. Context-aware devices and machine-to-machine communications add exponential quantities of data. These data sources are time and place-based. Real time data can interplay with open databases and historical databases of census data, real estate, transportation, or climatic patterns.  This panel presents ongoing and upcoming research by the iCity: Urban Informatics for Sustainable Metropolitan Growth project based in Toronto and Waterloo and research by IBM, sharing insights, benefits and application ideas regarding the effective use of data to address issues such as transportation management and urban planning.