'Smart Cities' on the rise, Morrisville leading the way
The rise of ‘smart cities’ and Information Technology, or IT, has some city leaders looking at ways to leverage high-tech to improve the quality of life for its residents.
The town of Morrisville is recognized nationally for its work developing an initiative that uses sensors, broadband, solar panels and more to do this.
The town is now set to roll out a new mobile app this week.
The Cedar Fork District Park in Morrisville became the first test for the town a few years ago when a local company installed sensors at the park.
The town was searching for smart city solutions after realizing managing the park could be automated.
“So this is one of his largest soccer fields in Morrisville, and we are monitoring the moisture and the flood sensors in the creek behind us,” said Abhi Muthiyan, the Chief Technology Officer for Varidx.
“We have flood and moisture sensors in the ground. You can see over here, the pole. That pole is a moisture sensor with the solar panel. It's collecting the data and sending to our central platform,” he explained.
It also helps alert staff and neighbors of real time conditions with just a few clicks.
“The city determined they could save about one ton of carbon emissions every year. Just by implementing this because it saves so many trips for so many different people,” Muthiyan added.
Town staff can open or close the park gates without having to physically drive to the area.
It’s one example of how ‘smart city solutions’ is changing the way people work, play, and live there. The town partnered with SAM I.T. Solutions to make this possible.
“This is a public app so citizens can see that these fields on the park are currently closed, so they know that they can save a trip. In addition, there is a feature where they can click notify me,” said President Samudra Vijay.
Councilmember Steve Rao said the IT revolution can enable cities and towns to become smart cities by leveraging data to enhance the quality of services for citizens, provide for more transparent government, better planning and drive local innovation. He added this could also bring more job opportunities.
“We have solar arrays now in our fire stations, where we can optimize energy efficiency, and a data portal where residents and even staff members can go in and look and see how much energy is being consumed. So it promotes our sustainability,” Rao said.
During the pandemic, Morrisville launched its Smart City Comittee to bring innovative ideas to help growth, development, traffic patterns and even public safety.
“You can get real time visibility of your traffic counts, so that when you're planning development and things like that. These are all things that we're working on, and we've seen such immediate benefit,” he said.
Residents can also take on-demand transit in Morrisville through an app which takes them to 15 different nodes around the town.
The data collected from sensors, video cameras, parking meters license readers and smartphones overall is changing the game for the fast-growing area.
“So that's the example of the data that you get can actually help you make decisions and make investments, which I think is critically important. And that's why data can be such a powerful tool. If it's used in the correct way,” Rao said.
As the pace of innovation continues to accelerate at an unprecedented pace, town leaders are searching for ways to build off this momentum.
Rao said he’s interested to learn how this could help officials track and solve crimes, too.
“Let’s talk about smart technology from a public safety perspective. Perhaps looking at gun detection solutions, talking to Durham, whether we can embed that in these initiatives. The other area that I've looked at is automated speeds on cameras, you know, automated intelligent transportation systems were to augment staffing levels for our police.”
“You would actually see we have a lot of speeding going on in front of the schools and sort of like red light cameras, but I think that could be an interesting area where you look merging these technologies to cross different departments. We've seen it work with sustainability.Public safety, would be a great example of that,” Rao said.
Samudra Vijay, the President of SAM I.T. Solutions, said most smart city solutions out there are mostly for the administrative staff. At the town of Morrisville, the focus is on engaging the citizens.
“We are now looking at monitoring the traffic on Highway 54 and Avation Parkway. Putting cameras and sensors out there,” he added.
The town plans to roll out its new mobile app which will have the ability to push everything to the device so that residents are getting that information on time and helping the town make better decisions.
The app is called Morrisville Central with a tentative launch date for May 5th.
