BUILDING A SMARTER MESA Smart City Strategic Plan for City of Mesa, AZ
Think Big Partners, LLC. Confidential and Proprietary. All Rights Reserved.
INTRODUCTION
The City of Mesa in Maricopa County, Arizona, retained Think Big Partners in an engagement to create a smart city strategic plan that aligns with the current City of Mesa IT Assessment, Strategy and Roadmap and Mesa General Plan 2040. Think Big Partners brings people, ideas, processes and opportunities together to create more vibrant, smarter, globally connected high impact communities. The Think Big smart city advisory team uses design thinking in the building, creation and growth of smart cities that improves efficiency and delivers positive impact to the city’s most important stakeholders: the citizens. This document defines the City of Mesa’s strategy, opportunities, priorities and a path forward for building a smarter city. The initial discovery phase compilation was delivered separately and this plan completes the design phase of the process. It is architected to provide city leadership with the insights, vision, and strategy necessary to activate a smart city plan in a phase-based approach that is organized and prioritized with actionable next steps. Building A Smarter Mesa: Smart City Strategic Plan Think Big Partners, LLC
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Every growing city today is facing some type of urbanization challenge. It is estimated that up to 3 million people are moving each week to cities and by 2050, city dwellers will outnumber rural dwellers by a ratio if 2:1. Mesa, currently as Arizona's 3rd largest city and poised for growth due to its many attractive elements, must be ready to both meet the needs of its current citizens while anticipating the needs of its growing 133 square mile community that will receive some of this population shift regionally, nationally and globally. Smart city technologies, based on Internet of things technologies, have created an exciting spectrum of “smart city” opportunities for Mesa to consider. Technological advancements, paired with data driven insights, can help the City of Mesa create a powerful platform to support economic development, inclusion and create opportunity to enhance the quality of life for all citizens while preserving the legacy core values of the city. This report is organized around seven distinct themes: ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Smart Community - create an engaged, inclusive and equitable community that can provide a high quality life to all Mesa citizens Smart Downtown - creating a vibrant, attractive downtown that is thriving with live work and play activities by both residents and businesses Smart Environment - protect the environment and create sustainable options where possible Smart Government - create a responsive, engaged city that makes decisions based on data and understands the needs of its citizens Smart Infrastructure - modernize essential infrastructure to provide essential city services and preserve a high quality of life in Mesa Smart Public Safety - create a safe and secure environment for all citizens Smart Transportation and Mobility - create accessible, equitable and safe multi-modal transit options along with creating the ability to move easily throughout Mesa
The opportunity for Mesa to create new applications, programs and services that support Mesa’s growth has never been greater. While smart city technologies are the main focus of the report, these ideas do not exist in a department focused silo or in a technology vacuum. For a city to truly be “smart”, a holistic approach should be taken to encourage coordinated activities, Building A Smarter Mesa: Smart City Strategic Plan Think Big Partners, LLC
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shared benefits from multiple stakeholders and an ongoing combined learning by all city officials working together to create maximum taxpayer benefit for the citizens of Mesa. Some of the solutions discussed can be implemented through traditional procurement methods, while others may be part of a performance based model or a hybrid public private partnership. Regardless of the procurement model, diligence must be used to both evaluate technology for proper application and its ability to deliver value while making sure the citizens are informed, feel engaged and are helping to “co-create� the city in which they live in. Smart cities are connected, responsive to citizen needs and provide transparency to all stakeholders in order to run a city more efficiently, effectively and more responsibly based on the data insights and commensurate controls determined by technology and policies that support them. This roadmap is the beginning of an ongoing process and the recommendations and strategies must be adapted as Mesa evolves. Mesa will continue to grow and we hope that this smart city plan will help the City of Mesa respond to the urbanization challenges it may face. Lastly, smart cities are not about technology - they are about people. For Mesa to achieve its fullest potential as a city, the citizens must remain engaged. Together, the City of Mesa and its citizens can build a city that celebrates Mesa’s legacy while increasing the quality of life for all people.
PROJECT OVERVIEW Methodology This research and planning project was conducted over a five-month period. The process included a discovery phase with in-depth analysis of primary and secondary city planning documents, a survey process to elicit key internal stakeholder feedback for the city to gain a better view of sentiment and attitudes that are essential to smart city success, additional third party market research and interviews of over eighty participants either in person, via e-mail or over the phone. As part of the design thinking process, a citizen engagement workshop event was held that provided additional feedback from nearly seventy citizens to explore specific challenges and experiences they face within Mesa, including a chance for the audience to participate in the ideation process. The design phase included follow up research for clarification and verification from the discovery phase and in-depth analysis to synthesize all data collected necessary to develop a Building A Smarter Mesa: Smart City Strategic Plan Think Big Partners, LLC
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comprehensive smart city strategic plan tailored to meet the needs and goals of the City of Mesa and its citizens.
THE CITIZEN VOICE Citizen Engagement Event Overview As part of the design thinking process, citizens play a vital role in the explorer and ideator process of discovery. Furthermore, citizens are even more necessary to smart city development discussion. As citizens learn more about the ever-changing smart city possibilities, they have stronger opinions about the things that matter. The citizen voice plays a powerful role in helping to design a smart city plan that properly aligns solutions to existing problems, and gets the citizens invested in the progress. Smarter Mesa intentionally designed a citizen engagement program that allowed citizens to participate in a Citizen Innovator Workshop on October 25, 2018 at the Mesa Arts Center. Over 150 citizens registered to attend. After a presentation on design thinking and smart cities, attendees voted on topics to discuss. The three selected topics were: 1) Transportation and Mobility, 2) Downtown Vibrancy and 3) Health / Community Development / Homelessness. Attendees were asked to share challenges they face in their daily interactions with the City of Mesa and then engage in an interactive ideation session. Notes were recorded and shared publicly. Some examples of the discussion are listed below.
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The full notes from the Citizen Innovator Workshop can be found at https://www.mesanow.org/news/public/article/2196.
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BUILDING A SMARTER MESA Smart Cities Overview In 2018, more than half the world's population lives in cities. Every week nearly 1.5 million people become urban dwellers and by 2050, the urban population will account for more than two-thirds of the world's population. Mesa, Arizona has a population of 484,587 people. This makes Mesa the third largest city in the state in the 38th largest in the country. Mesa covers over 138 mi.² and has a population density of over 3514 people per square mile. Mesa has seen tremendous growth in every sense is taken since the early 1900s. The largest population increase was recorded between 1970 and 1980, reflecting a 141% increase. In the past 30 years, Mesa has seen its population double and the trend does not seem to be letting up.
The world population is continuously growing, and urbanization has reached a significant impact on both people and the cities. This puts local governments under pressure because of limited resources such as electricity, water, transportation and funding to support the needs of the citizens.
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The answer seems to lie in making cities smarter by creating “smart cities�. Smart cities are based on the concept that technology can provide mechanisms to lower a city’s operating cost, modernize infrastructure, improve efficiencies, create revenue, better engage citizens, remove daily urban living friction, enhance inclusion and increase the overall quality of life through a combination of technology, connectivity and data. As we enter into the next phase of building smart cities, smart city planning is evolving into the understanding that it is about people, not the technology. Cities must utilize technology to more effectively deliver essential city services to its citizens while understanding that it is competing both regionally, nationally and globally for people. These services must be designed for all citizens, of all ages and all socioeconomic characteristics.
Building a smart city requires investment in infrastructure. Advanced Internet of things technologies can provide sensors that create data driven deep insights that can help city leadership make better decisions and take actions to more effectively deliver services to citizens. Increasingly the investment to fund these technologies comes from public and private partnerships in which cities, private companies and often even the citizens come together to build a smart city.
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Research has shown that for every $1 billion invested in wireless infrastructure, 12,000 jobs-years of employment is gained. For every $1 billion invested in federal highway and transit infrastructure, 13,000 jobs are created. Additionally, nearly 50,000 jobs have come from smart grid projects funded through the American recovery and reinvestment act. While investing in smart city technology requires a tremendous amount of capital, it is both necessary for cities to survive law by providing a high-quality life to the current residents and it also provides employment growth. According to McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), smart city applications are being used to improve some quality of life indicators by 10 to 30%. ●
Smart city's driven by data are adding digital intelligence to existing urban systems. This is enabling city leadership to do more with less by making better decisions. Connected applications put real-time information into the hands of leaders to help them make better choices.
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In the MGI study, the three sample cities that were running smart city applications were able to reduce fatalities by 8 to 10%, accelerate emergency response times by 20 to 35%, shave the average commute by 15 to 20%, lower the disease burden by 8 to 15%, reduce crime incidents by 30-40%, reduce the liters of water used by a citizen by 25-80 liters per day and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 10 to 15%. All of these factors are important to the city of Mesa.
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According to this research, success requires public-private partnerships. The public sector would be the owner of approximately 70% of the applications in this study. But 60% of the initial investment required to implement these applications could come from private sector. Additionally, more than half of the initial investment made by the public sector could generate a positive return in the smart city environment. This return is the result of either direct savings or opportunities to produce revenue needs public-private partnerships.
Historically, smart city technology had produced inconsistent and unreliable results. Some of this was the byproduct of unstable connectivity network environments which are essential to Internet of things technologies. Until recently many of the smart city technologies were tools that were behind the scenes. Today in 2018, many of these technologies are more prominently visible and are being directly inserted into the lives of citizens. Smart phones have become the access point for the average citizen to the city and its services, putting instant information about transit, traffic, health services, safety alerts, weather data and community news into each citizen hands each day. There are three layers of smartness. The first layer is traditional infrastructure, both physical and social. This layer will also be referenced as the “foundational layer”. The second layer, which will also be referenced as the “enabling layer”, is the technology base that includes networks of Building A Smarter Mesa: Smart City Strategic Plan Think Big Partners, LLC
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connected devices and sensors that operate through some type of connectivity layer. The third layer or “impacting layer” is comprised of the smart applications and data analysis capabilities that right on top of these networks. As citizens in cities adopt and use these technologies, often times this leads to better decisions and behavioral changes. Cities are just beginning to scrape the surface of unlocking the value of data. Interoperability is required to capture 40% of the total value of this data to cities. In 2015, it was estimated that less than 1% of the data is being currently used. As more data becomes available this can be used for optimization and prediction, not just descriptive and diagnostic information. This data has value beyond that of just citizen usage. It is estimated that there is 200% more value for B2B applications that can provide local industries tremendous value through the modernize infrastructure that a smart city can provide. According to McKinsey Global Institute, the following financial impact by segment is possible as follows that are especially important to cities: · Vehicles- $210 B to $740 B · Offices - $70 B – $150 B · Factories - $1.22 T – $3.7 T · Human – $170 B – $1.6 T · Cities – $930 B – $1.7 T Smart city applications are essential to improve the quality of life for citizens. Again, according to MGI, research has shown that some key quality-of-life indicators can be improved by 10 to 30% for a city that is running smart city applications.
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The impact of smart city technologies is interconnected and often is accretive, complementary and interwoven to create the greatest impact.
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The impact of smart city technologies is becoming more reliable as these technologies mature. The associated metrics are also beginning to fall into predictable return expectations based on successful implementation, fine tuning and continued technology development:
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Many North Americans cities are already deploying smart city applications. These applications range from LED lighting projects to infrastructure investments that are unlocking the value of energy savings, water savings or increasing efficiency by providing data insights to key city leadership. These applications are generally in the areas of mobility, security, utilities, healthcare or economic development-oriented applications.
We believe that the City of Mesa would have a similar application deployment mix as many of the cities shown above. The impact on economic development, however, is from all applications as a scity’s brand identify and “product� in the global market is made up of the overall citizen live, work and play experience.
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Smarter Mesa Themes The Smart City Strategic Plan is organized around the following themes: ● Smart Community - create an engaged, inclusive and equitable community that can provide a high quality life to all Mesa citizens ● Smart Downtown - creating a vibrant, attractive downtown that is thriving with live work and play activities by both residents and businesses ● Smart Environment - protect the environment and create sustainable options where possible ● Smart Government - create a responsive, engaged city that makes decisions based on data and understands the needs of its citizens ● Smart Infrastructure - modernize essential infrastructure to provide essential city services and preserve a high quality of life in Mesa ● Smart Public Safety - create a safe and secure environment for all citizens ● Smart Transportation and Mobility - create accessible, equitable and safe multi-modal transit options along with creating the ability to move easily throughout Mesa Figure 1: Themes for Building A Smarter Mesa: Smart City Strategic Plan
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Smart Community Mesa is located in a 133.1 square mile area and is comprised of six districts. Many of the observations in this report come from city officials, staff members and council members that have a collective yet focused view of Mesa. A smart community is one that is safe, equitable, inclusive and provides a high quality of life for all citizens. Additionally, for a community to be truly vibrant, sustainable and resilient, the supporting social “infrastructure� must be in place to attract and retain employers that can provide high quality jobs. Mesa is diverse and the policies need to reflect the sentiment and attitudes of this community. Smart communities align policy, technology and programs to make sure the cultural heritage and forward looking vision are inclusive, respond to social challenges like homelessness and create widespread improvements through the use of smart technologies that impact the greater Mesa community.
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Smart Downtown Downtown Mesa is the city's central business district in the original square-mile town site. It features boutiques, sidewalk cafĂŠs, salons and antique shops in addition to restaurants and other local businesses. One of the long-term goals is to create robust economy that supports the retention and expansion of existing businesses and the attraction of new businesses throughout Mesa to include downtown Mesa. Downtown Mesa has the light rail running through it and provides a walkable environment which has mixed-use nodes centered on the light rail station areas. One of the stated goals of downtown Mesa is to attract private investment and create an 18-hour city vibrancy that is characteristic of other second-tier growth cities around the United States.
Smart Environment Smart environment opportunities for Mesa range from smart irrigation controls that impact water to environmental sensing that help improve the lives of Mesa citizens. Mesa (and Maricopa County’s) commitment to improving air quality and reducing air pollution can be enhanced through multi sensor nodes that detect a wide variety of conditions that can inform city leadership of adverse events that affect the environment. Additionally, smart Infrastructure sensors that produce data that inform advanced control systems can impact green buildings and energy efficiency programs that Mesa has that are related to protecting the natural environment.
Smart Government The role of government is changing the smart city. Governance needs to be more transparent and the citizens are demanding to be more informed. Additionally, there’s an opportunity for citizen engagement to allow interaction between government officials and the governed citizens. Smart government requires transparency, accountability and a dynamic anticipation of the changing needs of the citizens, especially in light of this advanced technology.
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Smart Infrastructure Infrastructure is essential for every smart city. The modernization of infrastructure can help enhance the quality of life for citizens while producing significant cost savings for cities. Smart infrastructure for energy and water delivery is prevalent among technology assets being selected by smart cities. City officials in every city also need to recognize that departments should work together as foundational smart technology provides a core base for many department specific applications to function. Procurement for infrastructure related assets should include a holistic view of a city’s needs in order to ensure complementary technology considerations between departments is understood. Data from this infrastructure affects all systems.
Smart Public Safety Public safety is a growing concern in smart cities. Between cyber threats, an increase in domestic terrorism and new threats emerging every day from old sources and new unintended consequences from technology, public safety in the smart city space should be taken very seriously. Public safety will take on new dimensions as autonomous vehicles become more prevalent. Hardened IT assets will be required to prevent hacking and other malfeasance. Downtown Mesa will be especially vulnerable when it begins to experience high growth, combined with the increased population load from ASU’s campus coming downtown. There will be a steep learning curve when growth, real estate development and student activity all come at the same time.
Smart Transportation And Mobility Cities today are faced with many challenges. Transportation a mobility is the lifeblood of every community and Mesa is no different. There is a trend nationally to examine both VMT, or vehicle miles traveled and the quality of transit time and route to destination. With autonomous vehicles coming, transit will be redefined and the quality of time in transit will become equally as important as cost and miles traveled. Mesa’s light rail system is both a tremendous asset and a hindrance in some respects. Valley Metro rail is a 26.3 mile light rail line that serves Phoenix Tempe and Mesa and is used by residents, tourists, students and homeless people.
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Smarter Mesa Recommended Priorities Establish 5G Neutral Host Model Many cities are currently evaluating their connectivity platforms. 5G offers an opportunity to create public-private partnerships to be able to develop a more robust connectivity network while creating financial value. The number of connected devices is going to exponentially increase, and this enhanced technology will be a requirement for technologies like autonomous vehicles, public safety applications, advanced building systems and future applications oriented to the broad smart cities space. Many of the service providers would like to take the lead, however, we recommend the neutral host model due to the advantages it provides to the city while still being fair to the service providers. The financial benefit to a city can be significant while still complying with federal and state laws that are beginning to affect 5G rollout. One of the most important aspects to consider is the future network capability in the management of the platform. The 5G neutral host model offloads the financial risk and management to a third-party while still providing the ability to work with multiple service providers and vendors on an equitable and fair basis. We can make recommendations to top partners in this category. Smart City Brand Identity Campaign Consistent with Mesa’s leadership mission, vision and goals, the city should create a Smarter Mesa brand identity campaign to encourage city residents to think differently about the city while informing neighboring communities and areas outside of the market reach of Mesa’s changing business, social and technology landscape. It is important to identify quick wins in the media while engaging the citizens in this campaign to inform them of what is going on. Lessons learned from other cities suggests it is very important to explain the data privacy, technology use cases and beneficial impact for the citizens. Additionally, being able to attract new business opportunities and public-private partnership partners relies on broadcasting Mesa’s smart city program and its intended impact. We recommend an integrated marketing plan that incorporates social media, earned media and communications from both the city and public-private partnership partners that demonstrates action and the success of this plan. Upgrade Streetlights To LED Streetlights With Smart Node Capability One of the most important and straightforward assets that the city has are its streetlights. Replacing the high-pressure sodium (HPS) and other legacy lights with much more energy efficient LED streetlights will not only produce a cost savings (60%+) but will create a platform for other smart city technologies. These streetlights also provide monetization opportunities in the forms of hanging rights, easement rights, pole rights and other benefits to public private partnership partners based on the pole in the physical location that attaches to hardware. There are multiple vendors in this category and this upgrade should be paired with the 5G neutral host recommendation. Lastly, these public lights can provide a platform for sensors that can detect motion of people
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and vehicles in the street and adjust the public lighting to the required levels when these lights are networked, and the applications are running properly. The 5G model provides an open platform to encourage future innovations to further enhance the effectiveness which directly impacts the financial value of these LED streetlights. Enhance And Expand Public Wi-Fi Mesa should consider expanding the public Wi-Fi network throughout current high-traffic locations along with locations that are anticipated to have increased usage based on the ASU and real estate development. This network should provide backhaul of smart city data that will be essential to city leadership to be able to make decisions based on data insights and control the smart technology applications, such as these streetlights and related applications that are on top the streetlights. This network can also provide the ability for more citizens to use applications such as MesaNow which allows the unified messaging platform, citizen engagement and insights from citizen usage to create valuable interactions for the city. Future applications that support multimodal transit, wayfinding and entrepreneurship driven new applications worldwide on connectivity and is network can remove the barriers to provide connectivity to the citizens. Deploy Digital Kiosks Digital kiosks can provide an easy, quick win to demonstrate smart city action at little or no expense to the taxpayer, or even be revenue generating. These kiosks can provide everything from wayfinding in the downtown district, engage the citizens with public service messaging, enhance the visibility of the arts, encourage additional tourism, provide updates to the light rail arrival and departure times and create a revenue generation platform for the city. These kiosks can also provide new specialty real estate opportunities in which technology hardware can be located inside the cabinetry in the future. These kiosks should be placed in both high-traffic locations and anticipated real estate development locations such as the ASU campus, the downtown district, Pioneer Park or other areas along the light rail or high-traffic pathways. There are several high-quality vendors in this category and this also will require connectivity and should be considered in tandem with the 5G neutral host model and the expanded public Wi-Fi recommendations. FirstNet FirstNet is a dedicated connectivity network that provides first responders exclusive access to bandwidth that will ensure communications during emergency situations. This recommendation helps preserve public safety and ensures that communications, preemption, emergency wayfinding, specialized public safety systems and other future public safety applications have prioritized connectivity during critical situations. Data Analytics Platform Given the enormous amount of data that smart city technologies produce, it is critical for city leadership to be able to ingest, contextualize, visualize and understand the data in Building A Smarter Mesa: Smart City Strategic Plan Think Big Partners, LLC
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order to be able to make the right decisions for the city. Data analytics platforms can provide the necessary interface to be able to ingest a wide variety of data streams from multiple vendors. Cities should strive to move beyond simply descriptive and diagnostic data. Smart city technologies will provide opportunities through artificial intelligence, machine learning and computer vision to create predictive and prescriptive data driven insights that will allow Mesa to control advanced technology to reduce cost, monitors systems, make adjustments, increase efficiency and create new applications based on the data from the smart city technologies. Departments within the city should be given basic access to a holistic dashboard with critical KPIs for the entire city. Additionally, these departments should be given specialized KPIs specific to their department. It will also be important to be able to provide support from additional data analysts beyond the current analysts that the city has on staff. It is estimated that currently less than 1% of all the smart data is being used and 40% of the value of a city’s data can be unlocked through interoperability and sharing across departments. Care must be given to make sure that the data does not exist in silos and training should be provided to make sure that the proper interpretation and application of the data occurs. Citizen Mobile Experience And Messaging Platform One of the landmarks for smart cities is the high engagement levels that the citizens have through multiple platforms, both physical and electronic. The United States currently has an 82.1% smartphone penetration rate. This number is expected to grow marginally over the course of the next few years. It is important for Mesa to recognize that messaging to the citizens can primarily be published through the mobile app, e-mail, push notifications to their device along with more traditional mechanisms. Message integration to the digital kiosk can also provide additional communication opportunities and all of these platforms should be provided in a multilingual manner. This platform also provides revenue generation opportunities and insights that can serve the leadership to help better understand the needs of the citizens. Smart Water/Wastewater Consistent with Mesa's respect for the natural environment and understanding that it is an asset to preserve, smart water applications can provide a high value to the city of Mesa. Sensors that detect water leaks in the water distribution network can be used to help align maintenance schedules and help manage this precious resource as Mesa’s population expands. Water quality monitoring can help ensure infrastructure meets the demands reliably and safely for the citizens of Mesa. In some cases, wastewater may be able to be monetized if it is a high-strength waste stream. The ability to discharge this responsibility while creating financial value to the city can be a very valuable initiative to investigate. Given mesas success with anaerobic digestion in its pilot, would suggest the city would have a good understanding of some of the opportunities that exist in this category. We have a few vendor systems that we can recommend.
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Unified Messaging/311 Platform We recommend creating a unified messaging platform that can tie into 311 platforms. This system should be paired with the digital kiosks and should also allow departments to be able to provide messaging based on insights and the conditions that are identified through the holistic dashboard. Being able to communicate to the citizens based on their preferences is essential to increase the level of satisfaction and decrease the costs to the city. Multiple vendors exist and again consideration should be given to other public private partnership vendors that may offer these messaging systems as part of an overall package. This will help improve vibrancy downtown. Smart Grid Energy related technologies, such as EV charging stations, microgrid and alternative energy systems such as solar and wind, should be considered by the city. One opportunity exists with creating solar panel shaded walkways that would both enhance the downtown area and provide relief from the heat and encourage more pedestrian traffic during warm weather months. This technology can be paired with building automation systems, smart streetlights and distribution automation systems as the technology becomes more advanced. We have a few recommendations for this category that can be given. Gunshot Detection Sensors These sensors are an asset that is often paired on top of smart streetlights. The ability to synchronize these systems with cameras, lights and data analytics can improve the safety of public areas especially in high traffic locations and sensitive areas such as schools, parks, the downtown district or other high-value locations. These sensors can detect the sound of a gunshot and are used to identify the location a gun that was fired with an accuracy of 10 m in real-time and dispatch first responders to that location. This information can also be used to feed a real-time crime center and create predictive analytics for public safety officials. Crime visualization suites exist to ingest this data along with other sensor data to help improve policing in areas that are prone to gunfire. Launch Entrepreneur Smart City Program Mesa has the opportunity to capitalize on some of the existing energy that is coming from the ASU campus and existing entrepreneur activities. The co-creation model that exists to be able to pair up entrepreneurs and innovators with city officials and public private partnership partners is a powerful mechanism to develop new applications that can lead to new businesses and Mesa. This program should be considered in tandem with the innovation program and partnering opportunities that local, regional and national companies have that are looking for partners in the form of entrepreneurs and emerging technology innovators. Being able to launch things like hackathons, grant competitions or other short-term entrepreneur programs is an easy way to accelerate entrepreneurship especially in tandem with some of the smart city applications and ASU efforts. The city can work with schools and other programs to teach design thinking and Building A Smarter Mesa: Smart City Strategic Plan Think Big Partners, LLC
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encourage entrepreneurship by solving problems that citizens live with each day. This program should support Mesa’s focus on HEATT. Optical Sensors in Downtown Optical sensors should be considered as an asset to be mounted on type of LED streetlights and other secured locations. Often times these optical sensors are part of multisensory nodes that also have other functions such as noise, pollution and environmental sensing. These optical sensors can be used to help monitor and improve the homeless situation, especially around the light rail. This impact will help increase the perception of safety and improve the vibrancy of downtown. Additionally, these optical sensors can provide people and traffic counting that is beneficial for real estate developers as they are considering real estate development opportunities in downtown and around Mesa. These sensors can help improve public transit like the bus system too. This will help improve vibrancy downtown. Video Surveillance and Analytics Systems Consideration should be given to increasing video surveillance in tandem with optical sensors. The key difference is that optical sensors create metadata which can be interpreted as a data stream to create data inputs that inform an overall data dashboard. Video must be visually viewed by a person but is essential in the realm of public safety. Analytics systems that can incorporate both the metadata paired up with the video surveillance can provide a very robust view to city officials and help improve public safety, traffic, downtown vibrancy, transit planning and improve the insight for both public and private party interests. Build Downtown Innovation Center With Access To Smart City Data Creating a physical location for entrepreneurs, innovators, private companies, academics and city officials to work together with citizens can be a powerful and inclusive economic development force in the city. Based on site analysis, we recommend this location be downtown and nearby ASU's campus and located near the light rail line. The city of Mesa should develop an innovation partnering program that would encourage local companies and outside companies to partner with ASU and local entrepreneurs and events could be held in this location as a catalyst for downtown and the surrounding Mesa community. Access to smart city data would encourage the development of applications that would be valuable for the city to improve the quality of life for the citizens of Mesa. Data management platforms should be considered that provide access to the city’s data in order to encourage citizen driven innovation through the co-creation model. Oftentimes real estate development is associated with the development of an innovation center and this can also provide additional business to the local merchants in the downtown community.
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Real-time Crime Command Center The various smart city technologies in the public safety space can provide new insights to a real-time crime center that is helpful as downtown, and the surrounding areas continue to develop. Data visualization suites that can ingest large amounts of data and provide first responders specific context can help reduce crime, shorten response times and increase public safety that helps grow Mesa. We recommend identifying leading vendors that have a demonstrated track record of public safety applications and conduct pilots in order to identify the right technology that would be most useful. Some of these potential partners will work with other public-private partnership partners to develop robust applications and can be paired up with solutions in order to be more cost effective and its deployment. We can make recommendations to top vendors. Deploy Advanced Building Systems Given the number of buildings that Mesa has, we recommend the installation of sensors that monitor energy usage that can be paired up with other sensors that detect occupancy and activity to lower the cost of operations. Additionally, alternative energy systems may be developed in tandem with smart grid applications and the wastewater recommendations. These sensors can also monitor vibrations and material conditions in buildings to provide early warnings to stakeholders. We can recommend several established vendors that are providing applications that are delivering savings that are in the range of 20 to 40% energy reduction or more. We can make recommendations to top vendors in this category. Expand And Upgrade Traffic Data Services And Intelligent Transportation Systems Sensors combined with systems that rely on metadata captured from service providers can provide the city with insight regarding traffic data, pedestrian data, tourism data and other valuable data points that can help market planning in terms of real estate development, public safety, citizen engagement and more. These systems are often combined with public-private partnership applications in the Wi-Fi and 5G neutral host deployments. These insights can lower-cost of operations for the city or even be used to create new insights that lead to revenue opportunities for the cities and private sector stakeholders. These insights all create a higher quality of life for the citizens in building a more robust downtown and Metro area for the city of Mesa. Consideration to a few specific vendor platforms should be given that allow insights from neighboring communities to complement Mesa’s insights. Parking Systems While Mesa is not experiencing significant parking challenges today relative to other urban areas, we anticipate the ASU campus and real estate development to begin to challenge this current condition. Parking system innovations includes payment systems that provide easier and more time efficient access for citizens, identification of available spaces, increased utilization of current spaces by sharing this information through multiple messaging platforms and creating insights that lead to proper future parking Building A Smarter Mesa: Smart City Strategic Plan Think Big Partners, LLC
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space planning as cities experience a decreasing private car ownership among its citizens. Parking systems paired up with traffic data services can help provide real estate developers tremendous insight that will affect the location and amount of spaces necessary to maximize value and improve traffic flows which reduces congestion. Smart Trash And Waste Management Systems Being able to identify when public waste management systems need to be emptied can reduce the operational costs of ineffective waste management program. Sensor technology can either be mounted physically on the devices or optically through optical sensors and the associated waste management software. Traffic areas such as Pioneer Park, event spaces, or other out-of-the-way locations provide quick wins financial impact while improving waste collection as it occurs. Environmental Sensors Environmental sensors that can detect microclimate changes in terms of temperature, humidity and CO2 levels can be used to help monitor the conditions for Mesa citizens and inform them when dangerous, unhealthy conditions exist. Additionally, environmental sensors can help preserve the tourism assets and can be paired with messaging applications, public safety applications and optical sensors to be able to provide robust data to city officials and to convention and visitor bureau stakeholders. Environmental sensors can also be used to monitor industrial areas or locations that real estate developers are actively building on. Staffless Library It was suggested that the development of limited hours staffless library would enhance the city of Mesa. This would allow increased hours and provide more access to wider variety of populations. Using sensor technology to include optical sensors, access sensors and pairing up with citizen library cardholder recognition software, the staffless library to lower the cost of operations while increasing the impact in the community. This could also be paired up with education initiatives and entrepreneurship and innovation initiatives too. Care should be given relative to the unintended consequences that could occur to audiences that need to be monitored for proper library usage. Multimodal Transit And Microtransit Vehicles As the downtown area develops, multimodal transit applications should be considered to meet the needs of ASU's campus, the downtown district and building a community for all ages throughout the entire Mesa area. Pilot opportunities exist but must be done in tandem with transit planning and real estate planning in order to have the right insight for the city to make effective decisions for micro transit opportunities. Micro transit can be used to augment the light rail, and bus systems by creating arterial access for populations that may not otherwise be able to reach public transit. As a growing community, this will be vital to compete relative to its neighboring communities and to
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support all resident’s needs. Micro transit can be very cost effective but is still developing in the technology is not yet commercially reliable in our opinion.
ESCO/Smart City as a Service Model There are many models that cities can use to finance the development of their smart city platform. The performance-based contracting model in various assets such as LED lighting, is well demonstrated that can extend to other new applications. Especially for cities they're using a holistic approach to with city, performance-based ESCO models can provide a platform that encourages the alignment of private sector stakeholders and a public-private partnership model that is financially productive yet responsible to meet the needs of its citizens. We can make recommendations to top vendors in this category. Smart City Data Policy Smart city data policies should be developed in order to identify what data streams will be made available, how citizens privacy will be protected and how the data can be used by both public and private parties. Data is essential for a smart city success and governance policies will be dynamically changing to reflect the emerging technology that is being developed in this dynamic marketplace. We can help shape these policies. Infrastructure Modernization Infrastructure modernization is associated with performance-based contracting to some degree. The 5G neutral host model is one example of infrastructure modernization, especially when paired with LED lighting systems. Cities need to identify their most valuable assets that provide value to the private sector but not at the expense of the citizen. Smart City Procurement Policy Smart city procurement policies need to evolve given the nature of many of the emerging technologies that require pilots to diligence them properly. Some of the best technologies will come from smaller firms and may not have the ability to be a prime contractor. Public private partnerships and innovation partnering can allow these firms technologies to be properly procured.
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Figure 5: Master List of Recommendations
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Figure 6: Smarter Mesa Program - Next Steps
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Establish Leadership and Organizational Capabilities Create an Office of Innovation with the appropriate placement on the organization chart. This department will serve as the director and driver of results, and strategically invest in the forward progress by hiring and/or training staff in key departments, provide direction and governance to the program and deliver a cross-departmental perspective to future smart city decisions. Ideally, this office would be complemented with a multidisciplinary committee, or eventually, team, that can provide the representation from city-wide departments, critical to the project prioritization and decision-making process, and track progress against the goals laid out in this plan. Make It Easy to Partner with Mesa Mesa should engage the private sector as early as possible on the smart city planning, design and activation process. This is essential to creating successful public-private partnerships. The creation of the Office of Innovation will provide one single point-of-contact for private sector and philanthropic organizations wanting to work with the City on smart city advancements. Additionally, the City of Mesa must work to maintain agile procurement processes to support the public-private partnerships. Transparence and flexible procurement models should be developed in order to promote fair and equitable public-private partnership opportunities. Identify and Develop Metrics The city must identify the right metrics to evaluate all smart city related programs for financial, social and environmental impact. Developing seamless performance dashboards and KPIs for every smart city opportunity from the start will ensure monitoring and feedback cycles will encourage growth and success, and keep vendors and/or partners responsible. The Mesa Smart City Program should also develop metrics and milestones for the program itself to monitor speed and agility. Establish Data Policy Guidance From its infancy, the program should establish a Mesa Civic Data Trust as guiding principles to the management, ownership and access of data on behalf of the citizens and businesses of Mesa. As technology evolves, more data is available and becomes a larger liability for the City to manage, but also provides opportunity and innovation. Not knowing what the future technology may bring, creates a challenge for policymakers. Collaboration between the Office of Innovation and city leadership is critical to ensure the success of the data policy and governance of the program. Ongoing education must be provided to city leadership and other essential stakeholders to empower the best decisions and provide a foundation of knowledge in order to govern and communicate with Building A Smarter Mesa: Smart City Strategic Plan Think Big Partners, LLC
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various stakeholders, to include the citizens. Lastly, Mesa must provide clear communications to its citizens in terms of data, privacy, public private partnerships and that value of the technologies in the life of its citizens. Create and Implement a Citizen Engagement Plan The City of Mesa should adopt a proactive approach in engaging with citizens and their neighborhoods to gain long-term support to their smart city initiatives. Cities must work to build mutual trust with its citizens and its public-private partnership partners to opportunity while protecting the rights of each citizen. Activate Opportunities with a Phased-Based Approach Activating the smart city plan should be a phased-based approach. Care should be given to identify projects that provide quick wins while longer-term projects should seek incremental support to provide enough time to deliver city-wide impactful results. Use the Smarter Mesa: Prioritization Scoring Matrix (see Appendix B) as a benchmark and tool for implementation decisions. Adopting a life cycle approach to the ongoing innovation and modernization of smart city is essential for success. Areas that can produce high impact, goal-aligned, quick wins for a Phase 1 could include: Deploy Digital Kiosks Digital kiosks can create revenue streams while enhancing citizen engagement. Oftentimes kiosks in high-traffic locations can be put in without any capital expenditures or budget for operating expense. Digital kiosks become a highly visible sign of smart city progress and can be used for wayfinding, brand identity, digital divide access, emergency communications, job searches, community events and programs, Mesa K-ready enrollment, local business advertisements and more. Upgrade Streetlights to LED Street Lights with Smart Node Capability Smart street lights can provide significant cost savings utilizing the latest generation of LED lighting systems and controls. These systems last much longer, can provide significant cost savings due to the lighting technology and also can create a foundation for other technologies such as 5G antennas, optical sensors, backhaul capabilities and more. There are many revenue opportunities associated with the polls and this can be a very effective platform for modernization, innovation and revenue generation.
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The City of Mesa must understand that building a smart city is an ongoing process that requires frequent revisions due to the pace of technology commercialization, combined with adapting to the dynamic needs of its citizens. In developing a vision, success should not be described in technical achievement but by impact on citizens and the ability for a city to provide a high quality of life. Remember, it is critically important to engage the citizens when building this vision too.
Funding Opportunities Public-Private Partnerships (P3) Globally, smart cities are enabled by strong public-private partnerships. Structuring a program that makes it easy to work with Mesa is the first step. Engaging the private sector with the direction of this plan creates new possibilities for conversations. Private partners are interested in multiple factors, including but not limited to: research and development of new IoT business line, opportunities for a showcase client and/or pilots, supporting the community in their own backyard, becoming a thought leader in the smart city space, and expanding access and quality of current technology offerings.
Data Monetization As the City of Mesa expands and grows its data-rich smart technology platforms, the opportunity to monetize de-identified aggregate data and metadata becomes a economically sustaining activity. Third party developers who want to create and innovate based on access to Mesa’s data, will pay for the rights of the data. It is one of the most valuable assets of the smart city and Mesa should preserve the right to monetize it. It’s important to emphasize that the data ownership should remain with the City of Mesa, and that the data monetization revenue serves the purpose of reinvestment into the Smarter Mesa program. Establishing a civic data trust will allow for all stakeholders including citizens, city leaders, and businesses to be aligned with the monetization opportunities and boundaries. Energy Service Company (ESCO) Model/Smart City-as-a-Service For the right assets, ESCO’s can provide a risk managed platform that provides access to capital and a commensurate program managed approach to essential city services. Many of the ESCO’s evaluate buildings (boilers, chillers, energy systems, physical infrastructure, automation controls), LED light system upgrade opportunities, smart waste streams, solar / wind energy, EV charging systems, water meter replacement AMI), school buildings (interior and exterior lights, building envelope, energy and water) and more. Typical cost savings is 20-40% across various categories and this is used to finance ESCO’s that are typically 15-20 year contracts. Think Big Partners can make ESCO recommendations based on Mesa’s assets and plan.
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Grants Federal, state and institutional grants for smart city development come available as the race to build a smart America continue. The Smarter Mesa program should stay keenly aware of the grant and program opportunities that could apply to the City of Mesa. Example grants might come from the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Transit Administration, Arizona Department of Transportation, U.S. Ignite, National Science Foundation, United States Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Justice and many others. Careful consideration of these opportunities should be taken to allocate resources and in some case, may be valuable to hire external resources or work with local private companies.
Program Considerations When shaping the Smarter Mesa Program, remember the following variables as impacts, functions and trends that should be considered to ensure preparedness for future growth and maximum impact on Mesa at large. Livability Ultimately building a successful smart city means improving livability for people. Livability will mean many different things to different people because we all defined quality of life in different ways. It is important to remember that people have various roles that they place throughout their day and a smart city is only as good as the neighborhood that each person lives, works and plays in while they are experiencing this technology. Community The more that we are digitally connected the more that people can feel isolated. It is important that technology enhances the lives of all citizens by creating new and meaningful connections. Additionally, being connected to government is also very important. Citizens can build trust and satisfaction with city officials with the right platforms that allow them to engage and interact with the cities. It is important that we build a sense of community to have a strong community. Data Data will play increasingly more important roles in the lives of citizens and cities. It is essential that we improve city services by sharing data. Additionally, we must develop policies on an ongoing basis as technologies evolve. Citizens must also be aware of the data policies that they are opting into and understand that their smartphone has changed forever the aspects of privacy that the average citizen enjoys. It is the responsibility of both the cities and the citizens to protect personal privacy.
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Communications Cities should understand the value of both real-time alerts in real-time monitoring. Things like public safety events, health information, traffic conditions and whether are just a few examples of how cities can provide information related to these types of events that are critical to citizens when adverse conditions may exist. Cities must balance their role between allowing citizens a peaceful life without intrusion versus providing essential communications that are both valued and necessary. Infrastructure Cities must create dependable, modern and efficient infrastructure in order to create a platform for economic development. Businesses will evaluate cities based on availability of workforce talent and the reliability of the city's infrastructure when they make their decisions to locate or even invest in a community. Innovation Cities must create a culture of innovation among its citizens and its staff members. Cities that adopt a “citizen innovator� mentality that enables citizens to help co-create city solutions to problems will thrive. Cities that make their data available via open data portals or similar programs will unleash the power of people on their datasets and will generate new solutions to problems. Data will become invaluable in a modern smart city environment. Data can fuel innovation, entrepreneurship and economic development which can create new businesses, revenue opportunities and jobs. Workforce Development Cities depend on skilled workforces to provide employers the talent that they need to thrive. In many communities, employers report having a difficult time in identifying workers in the STEM jobs category. City supported skill development can be enormous draw to businesses looking for skilled labor. The opportunity to support a modern skilled workforce is enhanced through smart city applications. Business Processes Cities must embrace more efficient, streamlined business processes to support smart city applications and access to critical data that will inform better decisions. It is critical for cities to make the necessary changes and provide training to workers to adapt to a more modern workforce environment that has access to data. Cities can use computer simulations to plan with greater precision when data driven scenarios can be made available to test assumptions. Business processes can adapt based on these insights.
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