Customer Spotlight: The City of Schenectady Leads Smart City Movement

The City of Schenectady, with a population of just over 66,000, has bold vision for growth. Schenectady’s leadership wanted to address its growing challenges, such as increasing traffic, resource constraints, safety concerns and inadequate infrastructure. Thus, the city developed a plan to integrate a combination of Smart LED technology and Wi-Fi throughout the downtown area to reduce expenses, conserve natural resources, foster business and empower government employees and residents.

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In the initial phase of its city-wide upgrade, Schenectady modernized its street lighting system. It replaced more than 5,000 existing HID street lights with sustainable LED lights and made the entire network accessible through a secure web browser. Additionally, Schenectady enhanced its network of video surveillance cameras to assist the local police department and provide officers with a better means of instant face-to-face communication. Residents and tourists can also access a live feed of cameras through a smartphone app or secure online browser to see street activity. Additionally, Schenectady deployed environmental sensors to provide city officials with data on issues such as pavement conditions and traffic routes. Now the city can respond more quickly to weather situations and better manage traffic overflow in real time.

With its wireless network that combines people, processes and technology with linked devices, sensors and other machines, Schenectady has demonstrated that not all smart cities have to be big cities. Schenectady’s leadership has leveraged modern technology to save money, improve employee productivity across departments and generate new revenue – all while creating quantifiable benefits for its citizens.

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