A Smart City: More Than Just Tech 智慧城市不止科技

余浩洋 贺莺

Boston wants to be smarter. The city has taken advantage of tiny sensors， big data and other technologies to become more responsive to its residents needs. But technology alone is not sufficient to make todays cities liveable. Boston has discovered that it also needs to reach the old-fashioned low-tech community and integrate that technology with city life.

Kris Carter， co-chair of the Mayors Office of New Urban Mechanics1， rolled out Bostons smart city program in 2014 with an app that residents could download to report locations where sidewalks needed repair. The city collated2 those reports and ranked them in a database， which repair crews used to prioritize their work.

The system worked beautifully， except for one problem： most of the alerts came from wealthier neighborhoods， where the concentration of smartphone-equipped residents was highest.

Bostons push to become a leading smart city now contains a core tenet3： high-tech initiatives shouldnt disproportionately benefit the already well-resourced. Under Carter， technology is seeping into the citys functioning and daily life， but with a special eye to serving those populations and neighborhoods that need the most support.

Being smart without smartphones

Carters group run meetings in local libraries and other public spaces to find out what problems people in different neighborhoods care about solving.

During the COVID-19 crisis， Boston started a project to use chatbots to help residents access food and provide logistical support. The project is a collaboration with MIT and financed through a resilience fund that the mayor launched at the start of the pandemic. It provides an interface for residents who are homebound or otherwise unable to access any of the meal sites. The chatbots operate in multiple languages， reducing the communications burden and allowing staff to more effectively focus resources on residents who need more personal attention. “We saw this as a good prototype for other engagements that arise for other purposes than food，” said Karter.

For many other issues， Carters group runs small experiments into potential high-tech solutions， which can have surprising results. For instance， they installed benches with built-in solar-powered mobile-phone chargers in three different locations and monitored how they were used. One bench was in the tourist-heavy Boston Commons park4， one at a childrens playground where parents often sat， and one alongside an outdoor basketball court in a low-income neighborhood. When the group examined usage data， it saw that the park charger got a fair amount of use and the playgrounds almost none—whereas the basketball court charger was used almost non-stop. It turned out that players were plugging in small electronic scoreboards， adding to the courts popularity. “The response was off the charts5，” says Carter. “Now the city is looking to add chargers to more neighborhood courts to promote exercise and increase well-being.”

Another experiment involved placing noise and quality-of-air sensors prominently at eye level on streetlights and other poles through a few neighborhoods， labelling them so that residents would be aware of the effort. But most of the sensors were vandalized6. “We had wanted to be transparent about the technology，” says Carter. “But apparently people thought the sensors were weird or annoying.” The city now plans to reinstall them， but at heights of at least 12 feet， without the labels.

Carters group also looks for ways that relatively inexpensive， easily deployable technology can make a difference， especially for the most vulnerable groups. To boost road safety， it released an app that encouraged people to engage in a safe driving competition with other residents， tracking their driving habits in order to name winners. Carter expects that this and similar apps will play a growing role in reducing traffic fatalities， “especially those involving pedestrians and senior citizens.”

However， the city veered away from the higher-tech pathway when it came to dealing with parking spaces. These are in short supply， and drivers looking for an elusive empty space were frequently circling around the block， increasing congestion by as much as 30 percent. At first Carters group experimented with sensors embedded in the road to detect when a space was empty. But the sensors couldnt detect snow—a regular problem in a city where winter storms sometimes bury the streets in several feet of snow—and would mistakenly report snow-filled spaces as empty.

The city then tried installing sensors on parking meters， alerting drivers via an app to newly open spaces， and even enlisting the data to raise parking meter prices during peak-time space crunches7 to encourage drivers to find other transportation or parking options. Eventually， Carters group raised meter prices permanently and uniformly across the city. Not only did awareness of the higher prices lead more drivers to walk， bike or take public transportation， but the extra money was used to improve bus services， which do more for lower-income neighborhoods than parking improvements.

Whether using low-tech or high-tech approaches， says Carter， to stay smart， a city needs to continually reassess its options to spot opportunities to improve residents lives. Take the sidewalk repair program. Walking the streets was proving a useful， if inefficient， way to prioritize repair needs. But last year the group found that pedestrians mobile phones could be anonymously tracked as they moved along the streets， and that data could be analyzed to identify sidewalk routes which are most often used by neighborhoods.

“Combined with our other sidewalk information， that gave us an even better way to predict where faster repairs would do the most good，” says Carter. ■

美国波士顿市拟推进智慧城市建设。该市已利用小型传感器、大数据等技术手段提升了对市民需求的反应能力。但是单凭技术并不足以确保当今的城市宜居。波士顿市发现，智慧化需要同时惠及技术含量较低的老派社区，并将此类技术与城市生活紧密结合起来。

克里斯·卡特是“波士顿市长办公室新城市机械师计划”的联合主席，他于2014年发布了一款应用程序，就此铺开了波士顿智慧城市计划。市民可下载该程序并报送需要维修的人行道位置。市政人员核实收到的信息并在数据库中进行排序，维修团队据此确定工作的优先级。

该系统当时运行得顺利，只出现一个问题：维修报警信息大都来自富裕社区，原因是这些社区持有智能手机的居民最为集中。

如今，波士顿一流智慧城市建设计划中包含了一条核心原则：高科技项目不应过度惠及资源充足的人群。在卡特的领导下，技术正逐渐渗透到城市运转和日常生活中，并对那些最需要帮助的人群和社区给予特殊关注。

智慧化不依赖智能手机

卡特团队在地方图书馆等公共场所召集会议，了解不同社区民众希望解决的问题。

新冠肺炎疫情危机期间，波士顿市启动了一个项目，用聊天机器人帮助市民获取食品并提供物流支持。该项目与麻省理工学院合作开展，资金来源是波士顿市长在疫情之初设立的抗疫基金。项目给困居家中或因其他原因无法前往用餐地点的居民提供了一种交互入口。聊天机器人可使用多种语言工作，减轻了沟通负担，让工作人员可以把资源更有效地集中在更需要人工关注的居民身上。卡特说：“我们认为这是一个很好的样板，除了帮助提供食品，还有其他用途。”

对于许多其他问题，卡特团队就可能的高科技解决方案开展小实验，结果有时会出乎意料。例如，他们在三个不同地点安装内置太阳能手机充电器的长椅，并监控其使用情况。其中一条长椅放置在游人如织的波士顿公园，一条放置在一个儿童乐园里家长常坐下休息的地方，一条放置在一个低收入社区的户外篮球场旁边。研究团队检查使用数据时发现，公园充电器使用量相当大，儿童乐园的基本没用过，而篮球场的充电器几乎是不停地使用。原来，打球的人把小型电子计分牌插在充电器上，增加了球场的人气。“这种反应真是好极了。”卡特说，“本市目前正打算给更多的社区篮球场安装充电器，以鼓励市民多运动，提升幸福感。”

另一项实验是在几个社区的路灯及其他柱子上安装噪音和空气质量传感器，选择与视线齐高的显眼位置，并贴上标识，以便居民們能够注意到。结果是大多数传感器都被人为破坏了。卡特说：“我们本意是想让科技手段更透明，但显然人们认为这些传感器很奇怪或很烦人。”目前市政府计划重新安装传感器，但高度至少为12英尺，不加标识。

卡特团队还在寻求方法，让相对便宜、容易部署的技术发挥作用，尤其是在帮助弱势群体方面。比如，为提升道路交通安全，团队发布了一款应用程序，鼓励市民加入安全驾驶竞赛。这款程序能记录市民的驾驶习惯，据此筛选出获胜者。卡特预计此类应用程序将会在降低交通死亡人数方面发挥日益重要的作用，“特别是减少行人和老年人的交通死亡”。

不过，在解决停车位的问题上，波士顿市驶离了高科技轨道。市内停车位短缺，驾车人往往绕着社区兜圈子苦寻车位，使拥堵程度增加了30%之多。一开始，卡特团队在马路上试装了传感器探测空置车位，但是传感器无法识别积雪——这是波士顿经常出现的一个问题，冬天暴风雪来临，街道有时被积雪覆盖数英尺之深——传感器会把积雪处误报为空车位。

该市后来又尝试在停车收费咪表上安装传感器，通过应用程序提醒司机注意新空出的车位，甚至在车位紧张的高峰期利用这些数据提高咪表收费标准，以鼓励驾车人使用其他交通工具或调整停车地点。最终，卡特团队在全市范围内统一并永久性地提高了咪表收费标准。意识到停车费用上涨不但促使更多原本驾车的市民选择步行、骑单车或使用公共交通工具，由此增加的收入还被用于改善公交车服务，对低收入社区而言，这比改善停车条件更有用。

卡特指出，低技术也好，高技术也罢，一个城市要想保持智慧化，就要不断重新评估其选择，寻求改善市民生活的机会。以人行道维修项目为例。过去，走街串巷虽然效率不高，但证明是确定道路维修优先级的有效方式。不过团队去年发现，可以匿名追踪路上行人的手机信号，通过数据分析确定街区内哪些路段的人行道使用频率最高。

卡特指出：“结合有关人行道的其他信息，就可以更好地预测优先修缮哪些路段收益最大。”                                          □

（译者单位：宁波大学）

1由美国波士顿政府市长办公室2010年起设立的机构（简称MONUM），致力于吸收民众力量参与技术创新，打破政府和民众之间的壁垒，建立政府内部和外部创新者的合作渠道，解决城市发展过程中的新问题。  2 collate比对，核实。

3 tenet宗旨;原则。

4位于波士顿市中心，是美国最古老的城市公园之一，公园内景观众多，也经常用作迎接贵宾的大众集会场所。  5 off the charts处于极高水平的。  6 vandalize故意破坏（他人财物）。

7 crunch（突发的）不足，短缺。