City of Data
How often do you hear of your friends doing co-ops with a startup? There’s no doubt that we, as millennials, are a startup generation.
And that’s great, but why are we so attracted to startups as opposed to, say, a job with the government?
But, on the flip side, working at government level jobs for the betterment of the community is the last thing on our minds.
I don’t blame us though. From my direct interaction with a government role (*cough* the DMV), the positions appear boring, restrictive, lacking in passion and meaningful impact. Recent research also shows that millennials want the opposite. We prefer exploring new solutions to problems and love seeing the larger impact of our work.
But if you’re in Boston, don’t rule out government jobs just yet. Boston’s city government has shifted to making “data-driven” decisions, which means uprooting its structures and replacing them with systems that start with “customer” feedback. The customers beings Bostonians.
This is leading to some pretty amazing innovative solutions to improve city management.
Here are the three fascinating ways Boston uses Big Data:
1) Fixing traffic
Traffic can be nightmare for Bostonians. To fight this, Boston responded by developing a data sharing partnership with Waze, a navigation app where users share real-time traffic information. The Mayor’s office uses this information to understand traffic patterns and predict future behavior. Then the city experiments, making small changes in stoplight patterns to reduce time spent waiting at lights.
The Mayor’s office also uses Waze to find illegally parked cars in real-time. Officials then ticket those cars to discourage the practice and move traffic through the city faster.
Whether you find the new initiative worthwhile or it makes you think of George Orwell’s 1984, it’s definitely interesting.
2) Community-based Reporting
One of Boston’s innovations is a mobile app called BOS:311, which makes it easy to communicate with the city’s various services. It takes under 30 seconds to report anything from an illegally parked car to a pothole.
And, once the problem is fixed, the user gets an email with a picture of the fixed problem plus a picture of the person who filled it.
So the community-based data collection system not only makes city operations more efficient, but also empowers regular citizens to improve their community and encourages reporting by tying a citizen’s report directly to a result.
3) Placing firehouses
Firehouses are strategically placed throughout districts of cities so firefighters can reach any potential fire ASAP. But is location the best way to determine how long it takes to get somewhere? Traffic data from Waze and Uber shows that’s not always the case.
Boston is now exploring an idea to use data from partnerships with these companies to redistribute firehouses based on historical traffic patterns.
I typically think of “big data” as abstract since it’s overused as a buzzword, so it fascinates me to see Boston create real and visible city improvements with large sets of information.
If you want to hear more about Boston’s data initiative, come meet Boston’s Chief of Data at our event on Thursday, December 8 in 215 Shillman hall. The event starts at 6!
