An increasing number of cities are turning to emerging technologies in planning their future, in creating modern infrastructures and in delivering services. The ITS department leverages Emerging Technologies, in accordance with the Technology+ Strategic plan, to rapidly and efficiently evolve services as technology and the expectations of society regarding technology capabilities progress.

1 Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning

• Natural Language Understanding (NLU) is utilized to provide the ability for citizens to interact with a conversational interactive voice response (IVR) when accessing 311 services. By enabling residents to simply inform the IVR system why they are calling in their own words, a better and more efficient experience is delivered.

• Image recognition is being evaluated to more effectively identify and classify needed repairs, and to automate  manual processes for City employees.

2 Internet Things (IOT)

Connected devices provide opportunities for greater efficiency within the City. Currently, connected devices or sensors are used to improve fleet management and library services for example. The IoT market is inundated with various sensors, platforms and protocols. To better manage the wide variety of approaches within the IoT space and how the City adopts IoT, the City has created the IoT best Practices guidelines.