Leaks

Source of Idea

After some research into Smart City projects, we learned that currently, world-wide, the focus is on cost-savings initiatives. City of Vancouver's Open-311 data was analyzed where we learned that Water and Sewer issues were the 3rd largest reason for calls of which there were 2,693 calls in 2015 about water leaks and breaks.

(#1 was problems with garbage pickup which the City already has initiatives in place, and #2 was problems with streets, primarily lighting).

Premise

Municipalities purchase fresh water and distribute it to residents. (Especially older) water distribution lines are susceptible to slow leaks – which is a gross waste of public funds. These aren't detected until there is a sudden burst, causing massive damage.

Expected benefits of implementation

• Reduction in cost of fresh water purchased by municipality.
• Avoidance of expensive damage caused later by burst water main.
• Greater capability to withstand drought.
• Revenue increase from fraud detection.

Solution uses:

• Municipal OpenData water usage per Property
• Municipality's water network segments & hierarchy data
• New IoT water meters at mid-points in the water network segments
• tmForum Trouble Ticket API to document detected leaks
• Municipality's reporting portal to view the findings

Challenges of the Hack

• lots of new technology solutions to digest by a very junior set of developers who couldn't attend both days and 1 old guy (me) who isn't as smart as he thought he was.;)

Built With

• bluemix
• javascript
• node-red
• opendatacommunities
• tmforum-trouble-ticket