How are cities and municipalities embracing smart video technology? This article will explain
how the solution can help benefit communities and allow them to run more efficiently
through data-driven decision making.
July 24, 2024
As cities around the world continue to expand, they are faced with many challenges. Critical priorities such as public safety, sustainability, transportation, and infrastructure, all impact the quality of life of residents, businesses, and visitors, and are some of the many focuses of cities, municipalities, and other local governments.
To help effectively support the changing needs of their communities, cities are looking for ways to adapt and take a more proactive approach to addressing challenges. Video analytics is an important tool that can play a critical role in the growth and evolution of smart cities. It is a proven solution that leverages AI and data analytics on top of video footage and produces real-time alerts and actionable insights.
Technological advancements continue to improve and expand use cases for video analytics in smart cities. Solutions now range from smarter and more advanced camera capabilities to implementing AI video analytics solutions into existing hardware and infrastructure.
Whether a city is investing in new smart camera deployments, complete with edge computing, or are incorporating advanced analytics software reading footage compatible with legacy camera systems, AI-powered video analytics can deliver sophisticated data collection, processing, and analytics capabilities. These capabilities can help detect objects, count vehicles or pedestrians, estimate quantities, identify anomalies, read movement patterns, and much more.
Equipped with these functionalities, smart video analytics can help with some of the most impactful urban problems, such as:
Video analytics solutions deploy advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) models that can deconstruct the video feed into various data-points, such as people, trees, vehicles, pedestrians, roads, or even temperatures.
This data can then be processed to generate useful insights, such as counting the number of people at a metro station within a period of time, the number of vehicles waiting at a traffic signal – and for how long, or the number of cyclists using a bicycle lane, as well as trends over time.
Data generated by video analytics can be leveraged to help improve various aspects of planning, public administration, service delivery, and governance to elevate the quality of life of citizens.
Public safety is one of the most popular use cases of video analytics. The presence of a video camera can help deter criminal activity or help provide a sense of security. Cameras can also help officials respond to incidents more quickly and improve potential investigations with recorded data from a specific area and time of day. Cities can monitor specific areas like parks, or busy streets and sidewalks, and through smart search technology they have the ability to review footage by time and place by typing in a description. These live feeds and archived footage can be viewed from anywhere, helping increase security for the town.
Traffic congestion is a common problem for cities across the world, but video analytics can provide valuable data to aid in efforts to improve operational efficiency in some of the most congested parts of cities. For example, by introducing a video analytics solution, town officials can receive real-time traffic data. This data can include the identification of high traffic areas and inform future street planning to help officials provide an optimal solution for the locals . In this case, local officials can also act to reduce congestion risks; whether that be through the addition of speed bumps, no parking zones, or more speed cameras.
Efficient allocation of resources is crucial for delivering effective public services. Video analytics provides data-driven insights to empower city planners to make decisions that will have positive impacts on their benefactors. By analyzing camera feeds, planners can assess various urban elements such as green cover, lighting, road conditions, parking availability, or waterlogging. This real-time data helps them prioritize and effectively direct limited resources and manpower toward issues that need resolution.
Video analytics can be used to provide key data points at critical times. Having access to real-time data can have a massive impact on the decisions cities make around their infrastructure, and their plans to improve it. It enables the decision-making process to be informed by genuine experience, and the outcome is far more likely to make a positive difference.
This can include scenarios such as:
When emergency response is called out, we know every moment counts. Strong knowledge of traffic patterns across a day – and even across weeks and months – can help cities optimize first responder routes to facilitate quicker arrival on scene.
When growing or upgrading core communal areas, city officials want their planned changes to hit the mark and provide inhabitants and visitors with the space they need. Data insights can focus on both vehicle usage and foot traffic; enabling town centers to be developed with the right balance of pedestrian space and vehicle facilities.
City officials often need to search databases for a saved entry – such as footage - from months back, and that function needs to be seamless and reliable. Upgrading digital infrastructures to use smart search helps create a more efficient footage recall process.
Green spaces are a cornerstone of any city or municipality. They are often created with the goal of mitigating the effects of pollution and reducing the urban heat island effect. Monitoring air quality across a city can help inform where these green spaces are placed.
With US power use set to increase across 2024 and 2025, energy usage rates are a key insight city officials can utilize to help strategize their future energy planning and inform placement of new grids and integration of renewable energy sources.
While video analytics has the potential to improve multiple aspects of citizens’ lives, privacy best practices always need to be considered and established. Careful deliberation and planning must go into selecting and deploying the technology that will deliver on the city’s objectives, while respecting the privacy of its citizens. Video analytics solutions must be implemented in a non-invasive, anonymized manner that adheres to local laws and regulations. Steps can be taken to help address ethical and compliance challenges, including:
After taking these guidelines into account, you can start to develop a plan that will allow your video analytics solution to meet the needs of those it serves.
Tell us what your challenges are, and Comcast Smart Solutions’ team of smart technology experts will work with you to identify which video analytics solution can help accomplish your goals, and empower your community to operate at its best.
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