Making Cities Smarter with BoldVu®
A Path Forward for Smart Cities
A Smart City is one built on the idea that data-driven decisions make for more responsive, more equitable, and more effective governance. Like surveyors mapping future roadways and architects reviewing soil compaction studies, masters of their craft rely on good data to make good decisions.
However, wanting to make data-informed decisions and having the infrastructure in place to collect that data are two sides of a canyon with a big financial chasm in between. To bridge this gap many cities have turned to Public Private Partnerships where cities and technology companies develop solutions on public property to achieve both civic and economic benefits.
MRI and its partners have deployment ready solutions that address specific needs across multiple categories of civic benefit, with outcome-based funding models that help cities reach the targets they desire without necessarily bearing the financial burden to get there.
Civic Benefit #1
Citizen and Community Engagement
Powered by real-time data integrations and configured for interactive and non-interactive displays alike, digital signage is an effective medium for communicating and engaging with communities. Placed where people go – parks, pharmacies, grocery stores, train stations, etc. – outdoor displays engage people from all walks of life equally.
- Wayfinding, routing, and navigation
- Nearby places of interest
- Event schedules
- Polls and surveys
Civic Benefit #2
Public Safety
With integrated emergency calling, public Wi-Fi, camera functions, and dynamic content capabilities digital displays in cities can serve as safety beacons for a wide variety of emergent events. As a connectivity and edge computing hub displays can connect other IoT devices in the vicinity for enhanced services delivery.
- Emergency alerts
- Health advisories
- Emergency calling
- Security and surveillance
Civic Benefit #3
Mobility
The way people get around cities is changing. Because each city is unique, the transition to integrated mobility will also play out differently, and produce different results, from one city to the next. Digital displays can play an important role in this transition to multi-modal urban mobility serving to create awareness, relay timely and geographically relevant information, connect and charge electric vehicles, and help optimize public transit networks.
- Parking availability and occupancy
- Vehicular traffic analysis
- Electric vehicle charging
- V2X communication
Civic Benefit #4
Sustainability
Many cities are struggling with environmental degradation, traffic congestion, inadequate urban infrastructure, and a lack of basic services, such as water supply, sanitation, and waste management. While digital displays can hardly solve these complex issues on their own, their prevalence in public spaces and robust connectivity and edge compute capabilities can be leveraged to run applications that help gather data across these focus areas.
- Environmental monitoring
- Air quality and gas detection
- LoRaWAN sensor networks
Civic Benefit #5
Operational Efficiency
Digital displays deployed as data collection and civic engagement outposts can better equip cities with the information needed to dispatch staff to where they are most needed and to maximize materials and resources to improve response times, all while reducing costs.
- Improve field data collection
- Efficiently and securely analyze data to provide insights
- Provide meaningful information to the public
BoldVu® by MRI
BoldVu® can be the IoT hub of an urban signage network, focused on delivering value across three core functions: 1) Visual engagement; 2) Connectivity; and 3) Data processing and insights. A multi-functional, converged digital infrastructure endpoint, BoldVu® can be an edge data center hidden in plain sight. With more than 14 years of history across 200 cities and more than 25,000 deployed endpoints, BoldVu® is a highly mature and proven technology platform for building smarter, more connected communities.