Beaker Hill: The Future of Cities, Part 2

To integrate technology seamlessly into the urban environment, the SENSEable City Lab takes advantage of existing networks wherever possible. Instead of simply discarding information such as the patterns of cell phone usage in a city over the course of a day or a week, the lab aggregates it. Through their analysis, the flow of people through the city can be evaluated, helping maximize the efficiency of public transportation and other services. “You cannot change the city form very easily,” Biderman explained, “but you have people there. If they get information that is real-time, accurate, and relevant, this changes the way the city functions.”

This allows public officials and other infrastructure managers to adjust instantly to unexpected anomalies and provide better service. In a stroke of luck, the lab happened to be collecting data in Rome the night Italy’s soccer team won the World Cup in 2006. Their analysis shows the swell in both the density and location of people in Rome on that particular occasion compared to an ordinary evening. Future administrators will better be able to adapt to events with a very short lead time, such as protests and sports championships, with appropriate adjustments in transportation routes or police presence.

However, the SENSEable City Lab is not expecting its work to stay in the hands of central planners. Individuals given the necessary data feeds can literally make their own lives run smoother every day. A study in Lisbon, similar to the one in Rome, illustrates the power of embedded technology to cure us of our daily stresses.

Combining data provided from transportation systems, such as Lisbon’s bus, subway, and cab services, with information on bandwidth usage in cell towers, one can describe both the movement of people, and the conveyances designed to move them. The goal is to provide these data streams to residents, giving them real-time route suggestions. They will be able to avoid time-wasting snarls without having to rely on belated announcements of subway delays or traffic jams. “Without changing the infrastructure, you can start making the transportation system more efficient,” Biderman said.

Another small-scale study shows how the use of wireless internet across the MIT campus changes over the course of a day, and from weekdays to weekends. Each room and building has its own signature rhythm based on its intended use: lecture halls and offices will be active mainly on weekdays, while some labs may keep a slightly different set of hours, and dorms will have an entirely separate pattern. It’s not hard to see how such a study could be modified or extrapolated into energy conservation. Automatically shutting off the lights across an entire campus—or an entire city—in rooms never used on weekends or after 5 pm would be a remarkable cost- and energy-saving initiative.

On a very basic level, the ideas embodied in the work of the SENSEable City Lab are already beginning to make their way into the hands of curious city dwellers worldwide. Citysense, an application produced by New York-based startup Sense Networks, was recently profiled by Technology Review. Currently available as a preview in San Francisco, the program combines the tracking of mobile phone users (in a similar way to MIT’s work in Rome and Lisbon), with social networks and recommendations.

For now, Citysense users are able to determine which portions of the city are particularly active in a given day or week, so they can figure out which places may have something interesting happening, and where they’d like to avoid. An upcoming version of the software will allow users to get recommendations based on the movements of people who appear to share their interests and lifestyle. It may find that every day you walk by a restaurant that people like you have raved about, but you’ve yet to set foot inside the door.

With the advent of what Biderman calls “pervasive data mining” comes legitimate privacy concerns. People may fear that information on their movements released in the name of fixing transportation or energy issues is diverted to authorities who can monitor their travels. “How should privacy be assessed today, when such information is out there?” Biderman asked. “We’re engaging in an initiative to understand the benefits, best practices, and risks associated with the use of electronic information.” For the promise of aggregated information gathering to be realized, such privacy initiatives must be brought to the forefront. Through careful consideration, researchers hope to make effective, yet responsible use of the data they collect.

Through the careful application of technology, we can preserve the iconic vistas of today’s cities, while making them much more efficient. Imagine a day not too far in the future when you will know the second the next T is supposed to get to your station. (Or if it'll be coming in the next hour.) Cities of the future won’t be vastly different, but they’ll be incomparably more livable. Now that’s a development worth sustaining.

Part 1 of "The Future of Cities" appeared Monday on Bostonist.