San Francisco
San Francisco is a port city on the Pacific coast of California, USA. It is a world-famous tourist destination and the fourth largest city in California. San Francisco is the core city of Northern California and the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as a cultural, commercial and financial center. In 1990, an international conference on "Smart Cities, Global Networks" was held in San Francisco. This is the first time that the idea of smart city has been proposed. San Francisco was one of the first cities in North America to adopt smart city technology. San Francisco is the most iconic city on the Pacific Rim and is consistently ranked as one of the best cities to live in, leading in smart parking, car-sharing services, internet speeds, and more.
Smart City Projects
Open Data
To build a smart city, we must first break the "information island", realize information data sharing and unified management, so that data can truly serve managers. San Francisco enacted open data legislation in 2009 and was the first city in the United States to legislate for open data. Since then, more than 500 sets of data from various government departments have been released, resulting in more than 200 mobile phone applications. San Francisco OpenData is the city's open data portal and is a product of the official open data initiative launched in 2009. DataSF is the city's one-stop site for government data. Open data legislation requires city departments to make all unclassified datasets under their purview available on DataSF. DataSF uses transportation data to improve transportation demand and commute times and help meet greenhouse gas reduction goals.
Zero Waste
Another issue the San Francisco government is working on is energy management. To meet San Francisco's goal of becoming carbon-free by 2030, the city has implemented a package of incentives to improve the performance of new and existing buildings. Various technology applications help enhance these programs. For example, the San Francisco Energy Map is a tool that tracks solar and wind installations across the city. Residents or businesses can visit the site to see the solar efficiency of their roofs and get discounts. Likewise, urban building programs use software platforms to help buildings save energy. This online portal informs owners, managers and tenants about the performance of their buildings, and provides the most effective energy efficiency strategies to help them reduce utility costs.
Industrial Revolution
As a forward-thinking and innovative city, San Francisco uses connected devices to make urban transportation smarter and more efficient. SFpark is one of San Francisco's smart city projects. It detects the occupancy of parking spaces on the road by using wireless sensors, city authorities can use the information to adjust parking prices. Darton Ito, innovative director of the San Francisco Department of Transportation, said, “SFpark program aims to reduce the time people spend searching for parking spaces to reduce traffic delays, hinder cyclists and lead to more distracted driving. Ensure parking spaces are available in certain areas by adjusting parking pricing in real time so that the parking fees will not be too low or too high, causing the parking space to be occupied all the time or resulting in a large number of free parking spaces.” According to SFMTA chief spokesman Paul Rose, since the implementation of SFpark project, greenhouse gas emissions have been reduced by 30%. And in the communities where the project is implemented, the mileage of vehicles has been reduced by 30%.
City Media Center
Digital Cities Community Engagement
The City of San Francisco, like many other cities, uses “smart city” or “digital cities” technology to improve its services and infrastructure. While there are many benefits to the use of this technology, like automation for faster and more reliable services for everything from reducing traffic accidents to processing City ID cards, we need to also ensure that we protect resident privacy in the process. Through this effort the City hopes to understand resident perspectives and considerations about various technologies, data collection, and privacy.
2022-07-15
