US Ignite and ATIS said today that they have completed phase one of the Smart Cities Data Exchange framework. The project working group has defined its area of focus and created an implementation plan aimed at improving methods for exchanging community and economic development data.
The emphasis is on datasets that support mobility and livability across a region. “Data sharing is critical to solving problems that naturally extend beyond municipal boundaries,” Nick Maynard, the Chief Strategy Officer of US Ignite, said in a press release. “Whether communities are tackling issues around accessibility, commercial real estate development, or equitable transportation, the solutions all depend on knowing where the pain points lie, and what resources are available for use. Unfortunately, that information doesn’t reside in a single departmental database.”
Community partners include Austin, Texas; Chattanooga, TN; the District of Columbia; Independence, OR.; Kansas City, MO.; Las Vegas, NV.; Portland, OR.; San Diego, CA; Virginia Beach, VA and Colorado Spring and Denver, CO. Companies in the working group are AT&T, C Spire, Cisco, Fujitsu, Current by GE, iconectiv, Interdigital, Microsoft, Oracle, Qualcomm, and Verizon.
Data such as municipal budgets and crime reports and data from sensors, vehicles and IoT-enabled infrastructure can benefit housing, transit and commercial development at the local level. To do so, cities must have data-driven tools to visualize development outcomes and assess neighborhood impact. They also must be able to share data in an interoperable and secure way with other cities, adjacent communities, federal/state government agencies, trusted partners, citizens and application developers, the press release says.
The Smart Cities Data Exchange framework will detail the processes for “taking data from community development source systems (such as traffic sensor data and affordable housing stock), creating a pipeline for data transformation into a common open schema, merging data from across multiple communities, and serving data through APIs, discovery systems, and visualization tools,” the companies said.
Last month, US Ignite and Charter unit Spectrum said that St. Petersburg, FL, will be a Smart Gigabit Community. The St. Petersburg Innovation District will be the convening partner under a three-year grant from Charter.
