“Chattanooga Smart Community Collaborative” again wins national recognition from IDC Government Insights
For the second year in a row, Chattanooga has won a national “Smart City North America Award” from IDC Government Insights. Last year it was for the “Chattanooga Smart Community Collaborative” and its educational efforts; this year it was for a Collaborative effort to predict hotspots for accidents.
In making the announcement, IDC Government Insights wrote: “A logistics hub located at the very heart of the United States’ southeastern ‘freight alley,” Chattanooga, TN, has been called ‘The Silicon Valley of Trucking.’ However, a combination of traffic volume, geographic centrality and unique geology have led to an increase in traffic accidents and fatalities every year since 2015, with roadway accidents now the leading cause of death for residents under the age of 55. The ‘Chattanooga Smart Community Collaborative’ (CCSC), the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s Center for Urban Informatics and Progress (CUIP) launched the ‘911 Project – Predicting Hotspots for Accidents’ in early 2018. CUIP leveraged machine learning, specifically multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural network models, to analyze both historic and current 911 data to identify accident trends. This dataset is cross-referenced with DarkSky weather data, roadway geometric data through TDOT’s ETRIMS database, and accident time, date, latitude and longitude. The dataset is then used to create a visualization of accident ‘hotspots’ within a virtual grid of Chattanooga helping to determine mitigation strategies.”
IDC Government Insights is recognizing 13 initiatives in 11 categories. According to this news release, the winners were to be honored in less than two weeks at the “Smart Cities Connect” conference in Denver. That event has now been postponed, and the recognition will occur in November at the “Smart Cities Connect Conference and Expo” in Washington, DC.
