Use of Data in Smart Communities for COVID-19 Response and Recovery

When: Tuesday, February 16, 2021 -- 2:00 - 3:00 PM ET

This webinar was developed by the ITE Smart Communities Standing Committee.

Webinar Description:

This webinar was developed by the ITE Smart Communities Standing Committee. It features the use of data in smart communities in COVID-19 response and recovery. The webinar is one hour in length and featuring two presentations.

The first presentation is on Madison’s COVID-19 recovery data dashboard. This dashboard tracks Madison’s long-term community and economic recovery from COVID-19, and contains almost 50 metrics that give holistic insights into many aspects of the city’s recovery. The dashboard has played an important role in guiding the city’s COVID-19 response and recovery efforts, such as in determining the city’s peak hour traffic lane and parking restrictions, Streatery programs and VMT based mobility initiatives. Data for all metrics is updated at least quarterly.

The second presentation is on a recent study on utilization of COVID-19 street programs in 5 US communities using big data. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many communities launched “Slow streets”, “open streets” and “shared streets” programs to give non-driver users more space to socially distance by restricting motor vehicle traffic on selected streets. Traffic analytics firm INRIX analyzed trillions of anonymized location based data points in Minneapolis, New York, Oakland, Seattle and Washington DC to understand what impact these efforts had on mobility trends. While it is impossible to measure how many people were saved from COVID-19 specifically because of these efforts in each city, it is possible to evaluate the real-world impact of these programs on mobility trends, such as who made use of these programs most and who wasn’t well-served by these various programs, by using big data analytics.

The presentations will be followed by a question-and-answer session.

Learning Objectives:
Attendees of this webinar will be able to:

• Understand the data challenges and opportunities that communities face when responding to COVID-19 pandemic.
• Learn what data may be available and how to combine existing data in one place to give holistic insights into many aspects of a community’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Learn how the utilization of COVID-19 “Safe Streets” programs varied significantly by project type, purpose, design and user demographics and how activity on these streets compared to the rest of the community.
• Be familiar with how big data can be used instead of in-field surveys to monitor, measure and understand the real-world impacts of mobility improvement programs like COVID-19 “safe streets”.

Speakers:

• Yang Tao, P.E., City Traffic Engineer | City of Madison, Wisconsin
• City of Madison Data and Innovation Team, Presenter is a Data and Innovation Analyst |  City of Madison, Wisconsin
• Bob Pishue, Transportation Analyst | INRIX