Denver's population has increased 20% over the last 10 years, so the city has seen more construction and traffic, which has worsened its air quality.
To address the issue, they launched Love My Air, a program to measure air quality in real time using pollution sensors.
The city is tackling its transportation issues by participating in Vision Zero, like Boston. This includes launching an intelligent transportation system to address traffic and road safety. The program will deploy connected vehicle technology to allow trucks to communicate with traffic signals and connect city vehicles.
And to address and manage data around its infrastructure, Denver is creating an IoT platform to gather data about transportation, environmental health, weather, and freight. The data is pulled from road and weather sensors, street lights, universities, and other city infrastructure, which the city will use to drive future projects.
Denver also has a partnership with Panasonic on a project called CityNow. It's creating smart city infrastructure in a remote area that includes high-tech highways and driverless vehicles. They've installed WiFi, LED street lights, pollution sensors, security cameras, and a solar-powered microgrid.
One challenge cities face in their digital transformation and innovation initiatives is that they start small, maybe with specific neighborhoods. While this makes sense, Chidester said it often creates disparate technologies, giving cities an additional challenge of making everything work together for the benefit of residents.
"You're not going to drop a whole bunch of technology to encompass the entire city," he said. "Ultimately, as you crawl, walk, run, there's the need to ensure interoperability, and the ability to take information and analytics and drive value on behalf of their citizens."
Data and analytics are necessary for sustainability and infrastructure efforts. But another issue cities will need to address revolves around the data they're collecting through sensors and other means, Schafer said — specifically, who owns the data and what it's all used for. And do citizens have the right to take their data back?
"That's a thorny issue that a lot of them are going to have to deal with," he said. "Whether they like it or not, it's coming."