eCities -- IEEE Computer June2011

There's a fascinating collection of articles in IEEE Computer, June 2011, pertaining to ICT and city design. The article abstract referenced here speaks to work in South Korea to create city infrastructures that permit the aggregation of data and sensor nets and pervasive and ubiquitous network connections into a highly integrated environment for service access and presentation.

For example, let's say (my example, not one from the article) a person hits a tree with their car, knocks down the trees, it hits some powerlines, blocks the road, and the person requires immediate medical care. The tree needs to be removed and ultimately replaced. There is a traffic jam due to the roadblock. An ambulance is needed as is space in the appropriate health care facility for the injury. There may be a police investigation. An insurance company may be involved. Health records may be needed by the hospital. Next of kin may need to be notified to meet the person or to pick up the child that was a day care waiting for a parent... Lots of things follow from this situation.

In an eCity of the future, perhaps:
- police, ambulance, tow truck, urban forestry are notified and their work order data bases updated
- medical records are transferred to the correct facility -- one identified after ambulance staff perform triage
- emergency contacts are notifed
- traffic systems are updated and detours established
- real-time traffic map/road alerts are issued
- insurance company is informed of the event
- the tree nursery prepares the replacement
- CarFax vehicle history updated

While there are lots of privacy/silo/interoperability concerns and issues, consider too the accrued benefits of flowing the right data to the needed places immediately, without the latency of human intervention.

Imagine the work required to establish the architecture and interoperability standards. Then imaging retrofitting to existing data systems. New utilities would need to be built to the interconnect standards.

What if we tried this kind of integrated planning at UofT? What kind of environment could we create for our community members?

Food for thought.