Free WiFi eyed for Congress Park
City officials consider program that would bring service to public
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. >> Dozens of RPI students presented research, thoughts and ideas to the public and Smart City officials Wednesday night at the Saratoga Springs Music Hall.
“We’ve been working with RPI students over the last two months on some initiatives that came out of the Smart City Roadmap 1.0,” Commissioner of Finance Michele Madigan said.
The presentations covered topics such as smart parking, free Wi-Fi in Congress Park and a trolley application, among others.
“There’s a lot of great work. There’s a lot of great progress here,” said Madigan. “We’ve got nine excellent platforms to continue, the city of Saratoga Springs, moving forward on various initiatives.”
One group discussed bringing free, public Wi-Fi to Congress Park.
“We wanted to make sure that it would not only be effective, but also would not be too expensive,” a member of the group said. “We also wanted
to make sure that this WiFi implementation, which will start out at Congress Park, could also be scaled to the downtown area and throughout the rest of the city.”
Some city officials are looking to roll out public Wi-Fi in Congress Park soon. Madigan said she’d like to see public Wi-Fi there in the next couple of months.
“This is really something that if the city wants to do this, if we want to launch a prototype public Wi-Fi in Congress Park, we’re going to have the concerts in the park, Shakespeare in the park,” said Madigan. “This is something we can get done, so this is something I will be approaching council about.”
Madigan said she plans to bring the Wi-Fi idea to the City Council at its second meeting in May.
“It’s an attraction that I think is worthwhile to bring to Congress Park,” said Madigan. “Let’s see how it’ll work ... Then we might want to enter into more of a public-private partnership and scale it out into Broadway, maybe over to SPAC, up to Skidmore — but I think the city should take the initiative of launching this pilot program in Congress Park.”
Joe, a Saratoga Springs resident, said the casino should be the hub for the Congress Park public WiFi, because it ensures a direct link to the Wi-Fi access points via directional antennas.
Hanqing Gong, Nick Ziter, Qin Chen, Rajveer Kaur and Shama Kollya discussed smart parking, specifically ground sensors that measure the earth’s magnetic field to detect vehicle presence, which allows car drivers access, via a mobile application, to available spots.
Another group — consisting of Hana Murphy, Timothy Spaulding, Li Chen, Qiuyan Liu and Sayan Majumdar — discussed how the city could try to solve its parking issues.
The group cited the city Parking Task Force’s data that there are 1,300 spaces of public on-street parking in the city and 1,300 public off-street parking spaces, but finding parking remains an issue for individuals.
The group explained two companies, IPS group and Street-Line, provide parking sensors to the public. The sensors allow individuals, by using mobile applications, the most-popular being Park Me, to see real time available parking, mobile payment and reservation opportunities.
The estimated cost for the Street-Line company, which only provides parking detection, would be $56,720 over a three-year period while IPS Group has different price points for meter, pole and inground options, ranging from $416,840 to $718,287 over a three-year period. The price included striping lines to install sensors. The benefits to using these parking sensors, the group said, is that they would optimize parking technology, reduce traffic and parking time, enhance user experience and reduce parking management costs.
The group said the city would benefit in tackling parking time violations and reducing labor costs by using parking sensors.
“I thought the ones on parking and having [the] head of the Parking Task Force, Harvey Fox, really allowed him, the city and us [to] know what it really might take to implement some kind of parking structural model, whether it’s paid or unpaid for the city,” said Madigan. “Everything from the equipment that you need, from the sensors, to striping, what it might cost and how to go about making it happen.”
Siddesh Naik, Chang Sun, Sierra Weiss and Xiaoyu Zhang revamped the Smart City website. The website, www.saratogasmartcity.com, is live.
Another presentation called for a Saratoga Springs trolley mobile application. Presented by Dionne Das D’Cruz, Theresa Mandarino and Mengfang Sun, the application would feature an interactive map showing the CDTA trolley route. The main focus of their project was promoting summer service of the trolley, targeting tourists. The application would also feature nearby restaurants, phone scanning payment methods and city history at different trolley stops.
“I was really impressed with the one on the trolley. The ideas that came up in terms of what you can do for tourists with the trolley — you can GPS, giving you facts about things that are going on, various stops on the trolley and how to market the trolley. I thought that was terrific,” said Madigan. “I know Todd Garofano, president of the convention and tourism bureau, was also particularly impressed and wants to get more information from them and follow back up with CDTA with what they come up with.”
The final presentations dealt with a library media center for start-up companies, integrating information technology to education, electric vehicles and analyzing cities similar to Saratoga Springs around the country that have already engaged in Smart City initiatives.
“I thought they did a really nice job,” said Madigan. “I thought the presentations were spot on, in terms of taking some of the initiatives that have been outlined in the Smart City Roadmap and helping the city move them forward.”
The RPI students received course credit for their work.
Madigan said she hopes the city can work with Skidmore College to continue moving forward with different studies involving the Smart City Roadmap 1.0.