Improving smart cities and open spaces with AI video software

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Detect threats in real-time using AI for safer cities and open spaces - APAC Region Thursday 1st September 11am AEST | AMERICAS Thursday 1st September 11am GMT-7 (Los Angeles Timezone)

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As our urban areas grow, they’re becoming more complex to manage. As the Internet of Things (IoT) matures, our cities are increasingly connected. The promise of “smart cities” is being realised, helping local governments, cities, towns, and shires build security and protection services into their urban planning. There’s also a huge opportunity to use the same technology to improve the liveability of smart cities.

What is a smart city?

A smart city allows local governments to use technology to manage their municipality and its open spaces efficiently and safely. It’s a way to coordinate public and private infrastructure to manage transportation, energy, water resources, waste collections, smart-building technologies, and security technologies and services. From a security perspective, the design of a smart city needs to consider how the people living, working, and visiting the city and its open spaces are protected. This concern extends to both people and property.

Chuck Brooks, a thought leader in cybersecurity and emerging technologies, identified three key elements for a secure city, in Forbes.

1. ‍Shared situational awareness, intelligence, and communications. Municipalities must monitor threats to critical infrastructures from criminals, natural disasters, and negligence. ‍
2. Integrated operational management activities to prevent, mitigate, respond to, and recover from incidents. Security services must cooperate with first responders. Constant training and building of security protocols are necessary to maintain resilient risk management. ‍
3. Emerging technologies to facilitate both physical and cybersecurity. Examples include AI video analytics software, sensors, scanners, barriers, intelligence, and biometrics.

What are the benefits of using “smart” technologies?

A smart city uses digital technologies to enhance the quality and performance of urban services and to provide ratepayers with more value. It’s also a way for cities, towns, and shires to increase safety and improve the liveability of their municipality.  ‍

According to Liveable City, five things contribute to making a place more liveable:

• Robust and complete neighbourhoods
• Accessibility and sustainable mobility
• A diverse and resilient local economy
• Vibrant public spaces  
• Affordability

Using technology like icetana’s Real time LiveWall™ makes a huge contribution to liveability. It reduces crime, improves safety, and protects property. Automating your video surveillance lets you work in real-time to identify unusual or unexpected events. It puts security operators in prevention mode instead of reacting to situations that have already happened.

Enhancing the liveability of open spaces

While safety is always a major concern, using AI video analytics software can also improve the use of open spaces in multiple ways. Because icetana uses machine learning to continually improve the intelligence about an area, councils have actual data about how open spaces are being used over time.

The practical application of this insight can make a remarkable difference to how open spaces are used and enjoyed. It takes the guesswork out of how council scan improve services and identify the need for:

• Better lighting
• More signage
• Rubbish bins
• Toilets
• Drinking fountains
• Cafes and food services
• Benches and seating
• Bicycle parking

The same AI video analytics technology can also help develop local regulations for how people use open spaces. By detecting incidents, councils will understand where they need to regulate, including:

• Pets
• Playgrounds
• Walking
• Children's trikes and scooters
• Pets
• Cycling
• Electric bikes
• Mobility scooters
• Skating and skateboarding
• Water fountains

Detection without bias

Detecting anomalies requires finesse, especially when dealing with the public. This is where icetana Artificial Intelligence™ excels because it works in an intelligent, non-invasive way without using facial recognition technology or Personally Identifiable Information(PII). Security operators respond to unusual behaviour, not to someone who fits a profile.

Proactive incident management

While smart city technology is primarily designed to enhance the wellbeing of citizens, it relies on a human factor for oversight. It’s essential to provide your security teams and camera operators with a way to be proactive in the event of accidents, crime incidents and precursor events. Giving them technology that constantly learns and adapts to your environment allows them to determine when something unexpected is going to happen and increases overall safety in open spaces and throughout the city.

Improving response times

When a problem has occurred, being able to quickly pinpoint the issue improves the response time of police, fire, and ambulance. If proof of an event is required for police, security services or insurance companies, video detection software and good data analytics let security operators rapidly review a day’s worth of historical footage from your cameras in only a few minutes. Your operators become much more efficient and experience less camera fatigue.

How icetana improves smart cities and open spaces

For more than 11 years,  icetana technology has helped security operators automatically prioritise responses to both precursor activities and current incidents. Municipalities can use icetana AI video detection software to harness rich data streams from their existing security networks to improve situational awareness and gain deeper operational insights.

Get in touch to book a demo and find out how you can reduce crime, increase safety, and improve the liveability of your smart city and open spaces.