Which are the True Smart Cities? Only those able to give value to data generated by citizens’ smartphones

From infrastructure monitoring to road accessibility mapping, we are witnessing the spread of new ideas on how to use smartphone-generated data to improve the quality of life in our cities.

Kinoa Team
Sep 5, 2018 · 5 min read

Big data are now seen as an infinite source of opportunities and wealth, and the most important cities in the world are competing to use them in the most useful and efficient ways, aiming for the title of “smart city”.

One very recent and innovative method for collecting data on urban phenomena is the crowd-sourcing through smartphones.

If we initially thought that smart cities needed an IOT system made up of an increasingly dense network of fixed sensors, now new technologies are being tested which, taking advantage of the sensors present in all our smartphones, can achieve better results than fixed systems.

These data produced continuously by the sensors of our devices (very different from personal data that are often traded by social networks and that trigger so much privacy controversy) are instead an unexplored and harmless resource that can open interesting scenarios for the future of our cities.

As the latest report from the McKinsey Global Institute shows (Smart cities: Digital solutions for a more liveable future), the revolution has just begun.


Monitoring Bridges with Sensor Play, developed by Carlo Ratti’s Senseable Lab

To confirm this trend there is a research conducted by the MIT of Boston (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) published a few months ago and called Crowdsensing Framework for Monitoring Bridge Vibrations Using Moving Smartphones.

In the research we can read how the new method for monitoring bridges works:

The research conducted by Thomas Matarazzo and signed by the Italians Carlo Ratti and Paolo Santi shows how, by using the accelerometers in the most advanced and (now) widespread smartphones, you can measure the vibrations of the bridges, and understand the state of “structural health” from these data.

In fact, smartphones are equipped with three accelerometers, or micro electro-mechanical systems, able to measure the movement of the device on the three axis, height, length and depth, and to record a series of other data, more or less important.

The opportunity, according to researchers at MIT, is to create a network of mobile sensors for bridge monitoring, using precisely the data collected from the accelerometers of the drivers’ mobile phones passing over the bridges. Compared to a fixed network of sensors, a mobile network made in this way has several advantages: among others, it is much more pervasive; and it is extremely cheaper.

To test if a smartphone can actually be used to monitor the health status of a bridge, a test was conducted in Boston, where the MIT and Senseable City Lab are located.

The researchers placed a network of eleven fixed accelerometers on the Harvard bridge, the data collected were compared with those generated by two iPhones that were on board of two cars moving on the bridge. For 42 times the vehicles went back and forth while the Sensor Play app recorded the data it received from the bridge.

Result: the data generated by smartphones are comparable to those recorded by the network of fixed sensors. Obviously, this approach works when the volume of data gathered is consistent. Only entering a “big data” dimension, in fact, you reach a reliable and error-proof information.

Although MIT researchers reiterate the need not to abandon the classic fixed monitoring system, thanks to citizens’ smartphones it is possible to have a continuous and constant flow of data on the conditions of infrastructures, which can form a reference archive able to help experts to make better decisions as a mobile sensor can provide cheaper spatial information comparable to those of 120 fixed sensors.


Mapping the accessibility for disabled people by using Kimap, developed by Kinoa

The use of accelerometer and GPS for the production of data useful for the community is also the basis of the Kimap project, realized by the Italian start-up Kinoa, based in Florence.

Kimap is based on a specially developed and patented technology, which uses smartphone sensors to create an integrated navigation / mapping device intended primarily to help people with motor disabilities.

Kimap reduces the information barriers relative to the degree of accessibility of roads and paths daily crossed (in the city, in the country side, for work or leisure), thus expanding the possibilities to travel and move around offered by latest mobility devices (electric scooters, triride, etc).

Kimap is indeed a real navigator that updates itself automatically on the basis of data and surveys that the accelerometer and the GPS of users’ smartphones produce during the use. In this way, Kimap reveals the quality of the terrain and advises the disabled on the best route to follow.

To enhance the potential of crowdsourcing, Kinoa has created its own format for participatory mapping that actively involves citizens: the Crowd-mapping. During these sessions, the participants travel through pre-established itineraries whose accessibility is mapped with precision and thanks to which maps and documents useful to the city governments are released.

Future scenarios

These examples show us the great potential of big data produced in a continuous stream by citizens’ smartphones. If used appropriately, smartphones can provide invaluable and otherwise unavailable information for the management of urban areas and for the creation of applications and services able to improve citizens’ life.

The hope is to increasingly integrate these monitoring technologies within commonly used applications for citizens in order to make the collection of this data as simple as possible.

Given the scale of the challenge it is necessary that public administrations, universities, research centres and all public and private entities that have the skills and technology necessary to work in this sector, face a common front and create a platform in which to share their ideas and draw the guidelines for this revolution, which is promising great benefits for every citizen.

Kinoa

The Kinoa Blog. A diary about our projects and our way of doing innovation

Kinoa Team

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Kinoa

Kinoa

The Kinoa Blog. A diary about our projects and our way of doing innovation

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