New IBM Smarter Cities solution to apply intelligence to city operations

IBM has built an integrated solution aimed at helping cities to use analytics to gain a better understanding of information across departments and agencies, as part of its Smarter Cities initiative.

The Intelligent Operations Center for Smarter Cities, which combines IBM patented analytics technologies, will enable cities to integrate systems and apply intelligence to their city operations through one central point of command, therefore supporting them to better manage resources, anticipate any problematic situations, and analyse and integrate real-time information.

"The Intelligent Operations Center for Smarter Cities recognises the behaviour of the city as a whole, thus providing more coordinated and timely decision-making based on deep insights into how each city system will react to a given situation," said Anne Altman, general manager for Global Public Sector at IBM. "With more than 2,000 smarter cities engagements worldwide, we are now applying best practices and solutions that can be scaled to cities of all sizes around the globe."

IBM reports that the solution can be expanded to enable cities to adopt solutions that can integrate services such as public safety, transportation, building and energy management, and water.

Estimates from IDC Government Insights reveal that the new Smarter Cities information technology market opportunity stands at $34 billion in 2011, rising to $57 billion by 2014.