Skip to main content

Pennsylvania state capital trials smart city technology

The US city of Harrisburg, state capital of Pennsylvania, is using smart sensors to monitor traffic, air quality and waste. A Telensa smart street lighting system has been deployed since 2016 in the city, and CA Traffic (traffic analytics), Libelium (air quality) and FarSite (waste monitoring) are now also involved. Data from these sensors is analysed and combined with existing lighting information and displayed in a smart city dashboard. The idea is that this will show “correlations across departmen
April 30, 2019 Read time: 1 min

The US city of Harrisburg, state capital of Pennsylvania, is using smart sensors to monitor traffic, air quality and waste.

A 7574 Telensa smart street lighting system has been deployed since 2016 in the city, and 521 CA Traffic (traffic analytics), 740 Libelium (air quality) and FarSite (waste monitoring) are now also involved.

Data from these sensors is analysed and combined with existing lighting information and displayed in a smart city dashboard. The idea is that this will show “correlations across departments…driving insights for smarter, more efficient and joined-up services”, Telensa says.

The company has 4,000 connected streetlights in Harrisburg, which it says can cut utility bills by 60-70%.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • To charge or not to charge, that is the question
    January 26, 2018
    Alan Dron looks at why congestion charging and other similar schemes are so controversial in North America. In August, Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York State, described congestion charging for the city as “an idea whose time had come,” according to the Bloomberg wire service. In October, he announced a ‘Fix NYC’ advisory panel to study methods of easing congestion on the city’s streets. Although Cuomo did not specifically mention congestion charging when setting up the panel, he said it would study
  • SafeRide: it’s time to act on cyberattacks
    May 10, 2019
    Cyber threats are increasing rapidly and conventional security measures are unable to keep up. Ben Spencer talks to SafeRide’s Gil Reiter about what OEMs can do now As more vehicles become connected, so the potential threats to their security increase. Gil Reiter, vice president of product management for security firm SafeRide, says the biggest ‘attack surface’ for connected cars is their internet connectivity - and the in-vehicle applications that use the internet connection. “The most vulnerable co
  • Traffic management turns to machine vision
    June 1, 2016
    Traffic engineers can use the latest advances in vision technology to streamline and enhance traffic management. The idea of using one camera to perform all functions at an intersection is attractive to authorities for many reasons and camera supplier Gridsmart says it can make this happen. Its Bell Camera offers a horizon to horizon view that includes the centre of the intersection where vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians cross paths and it can be used for traffic light actuation, traffic data collection a
  • Truck platooning trials take to the highways
    July 24, 2017
    There is rising enthusiasm in America and beyond for the concept of truck platooning with trials being planned in several US states, as David Crawford reports. Growing numbers of US states are considering or implementing plans for trials of electronically-linked truck platooning on public road networks. This is in response to the interest being shown by the US$70bn a year road freight industry, where fuel represents 41% of the operating costs making the prospect of improving fuel economy by trucks travellin