The new projects include work on pedestrian spaces and community development. At the same time, the city plans to deploy an upgraded, "first-of-its-kind" emergency command center at the famous Thanksgiving Day parade.
As New York City awaits the inauguration of a new mayor — Zohran Mamdani is scheduled take the oath of office on Jan. 1 — the city’s public-sector professionals are seeking fresh technological edges.
One example comes via the NYC Smart City Testbed Program, which launched in 2023.
The pilots in this year’s program — think of it like an incubator for government technology at the city level — focus on the safety of streets and infrastructure, according to a recent statement.
Officials use the program “with the goal of streamlining the piloting process for emerging technologies across city government,” according to the statement. Public engagement sessions at local libraries keep residents in the loop about the emerging technology projects, which also involve private vendors.
The NYC Office of Technology and Innovation created the program, whose newest pilots cover such areas as pedestrian traffic and augmented reality. The office continues to accept applications for the program.
“This is not a procurement vehicle,” Paul Rothman, the office’s director for Smart Cities and IoT, told Government Technology. “It’s more about early-stage [projects] and understanding capabilities.”
The pedestrian project aims to give city officials a more detailed view about how people using their legs and feet as main modes of travel use streets, plazas and other public spaces — six places in total.
Sensors will help with those measurements, including anonymized data originating from Wi-Fi use in pedestrian spaces, Rothman said. The pilot will test the accuracy of the sensors. The data is important because it could help the city with staffing and other issues connected to those spaces.
Another pilot will test how well augmented reality and a community engagement platform can communicate and illustrate in 3D the design of a new recreation building in Queens. The city’s Department of Design and Construction is also taking part.
As the statement describes that project, “visitors to the site will be able to scan a QR code posted near the new recreation center site to view an AR rendering anywhere on the property, which will adapt on screen based on the user’s perspective.”
That means community members could gain a detailed understanding of what the project will look like — and how it might impact their neighborhood — before construction starts, Rothman said.
Th Smart City program has already helped city officials better understand the needs of different city agencies when it comes to tech innovation, Rothman said, and provides a “mutual benefit” for the many parts of the massive wheel that make up New York City operations.
Previous pilots included using images processed via an AI tool to craft “conditions-assessment reports for select recreation facilities,” according to the statement, along with using lidar to analyze traffic “associated with industrial activity.”
As those new pilots start, New York City is introducing what it calls in a statement “a first-of-its-kind Emergency Communications Vehicle” — a vehicle set for use for the city’s famous Thanksgiving Day Parade.
The so-called ECV-1 — a retrofit of a vehicle already owned by the city — can offer command post capabilities for firefighters and police and can “extend core network connectivity for city agencies, vehicles and systems out of remote locations,” according to the statement.
Tech included in the ECV-1 can replicate all land and mobile radio communications from all city agencies and become interoperable with state and federal mutual aid partners. That means if other services are offline during emergencies, the new vehicle could still communicate and offer dispatching and other vital response services.
“This state-of-the-art Emergency Communications Vehicle ensures that our first responders have uninterrupted access to the tech infrastructure and services they rely upon to support the public no matter what situation arises,” said Matthew Fraser, the city’s chief technology officer.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Thad Rueter
Dieser Artikel ist neu veröffentlicht von / This article is republished from: Government Technology, 25.11.2025
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