San José uses geospatial technology in cleanup campaign to prepare for the “Big Game.”
By Kristine White
On February 7, some 115 million football fans turned on their TVs to watch the golden anniversary of America’s favorite sporting event—the Big Game (Super Bowl). In the San Francisco Bay Area, a lucky 70,000 fans viewed the event from seats in the new $1.2 billion stadium in Santa Clara.
An event this size can mean critical revenue for local businesses, especially in neighboring San José, with its array of fine restaurants and hotels. Economists estimate as much as a half-billion dollars have been generated. “Last year’s game in Phoenix brought in over $700 million,” says Kim Walesh, director of economic development for the City of San José. “We anticipated a stronger economic impact since this is the 50th anniversary and the Bay Area is hosting.”
Like any good host throwing a party, San José wanted to look its best when the crowds arrived. San José hosted the “Super Bowl Opening Night Fueled by Gatorade” show at SAP Center downtown, where fans, players and thousands of media from around the world gathered. One of the teams stayed in downtown San José and practiced at nearby San José State. Downtown San José offered events and activities for all ages, including the SoFA Winter Market, Ice Skating Under the Palms, Winter at Plaza de Cesar Chavez Park and Super San Pedro Square.
Clearly, the last thing San José wanted visitors to see was trash, a major problem in big cities. So San José officials embarked on an intensive cleanup campaign that included identifying and eliminating illegal dumping sites. “With more than 1 million Bay Area visitors expected, San José was preparing to be a major hub of activity,” says San José Council Member Raul Peralez. “One of our objectives was to leverage Big Game opportunities such as the cleanup campaign to create lasting benefits for a cleaner, safer city. Our hope was that even after the game leaves, our residents and visitors would continue to see the benefits from the program for years to come.”
Cleaning Up the City
Planning for the cleanup started just three months before the game; funds were not approved until late December. Given the urgency, city officials tapped San José State University’s (SJSU) CommUniverCity, a decade-old organization that partners with underserved communities in central San José to help create healthier, more vibrant communities, and provide students with experience solving neighborhood issues. CommUniverCity is a partnership between the Community, SJSU, and the City of San José. Since its founding, CommUniverCity has logged more than 246,000 hours of community service, valued at $5.5 million and involving some 14,600 students.
SJSU graduate or upper-division undergraduate students act as project coordinators to help develop and administer service programs under city and faculty supervision. Once funding for the cleanup was approved, CommUniverCity assembled a team of approximately 18 individuals, including CommUniverCity staff, SJSU faculty, City employees and SJSU students. “TerraFlex enabled us to quickly and effectively assess the study area,” said CommUniverCity Project Coordinator Galadriel Burr. “Once the data was exported into GIS, we were then able to perform data analysis and create maps for the haulers in charge of illegal dumping removal.”
TerraFlex is a Key Player
With the Big Game looming, project leaders knew they had to act fast. To speed things up, they chose Trimble® TerraFlex™ field data capture software, a cloud-based solution for managing and streamlining data collection from a mobile device. Data collection is quick, efficient and accurate because there are no handwritten notes to transcribe.
The city had already identified key “hotspots” as part of a pilot program to reduce illegal dumping, which helped CommUniverCity map out four square miles of potential sites. Project leaders used TerraFlex to create data collection forms with fields for features and conditions such as location of trash (sidewalk, median, fence line); type of trash (shopping cart, furniture, clothing); accessibility; and whether it was electronic or hazardous material.
Training the field workers was quick because TerraFlex is simple to navigate and supports iOS, Android and select tablet devices running Windows® 7/Windows 8, which allowed workers to use their personal phones while collecting data. Everything is centralized in a single device so that there is no need for GPS, a camera or printed maps. When a user opens a form, TerraFlex marks the location on an internal map. Workers then verify the location, fill in the fields on the form and capture at least one geo-referenced photo. If workers are in spotty communication areas, the application is still fully functional and automatically synchronizes the data as soon as they are online again.
For the cleanup campaign, project leaders wanted minimal dropdowns on the form, yet still have the ability to add fields as needed, which was no problem since templates can be edited and immediately rolled out to workers to ensure continued data integrity.
While the city budgeted up to two workers (one staff, one student) per car and student supervision for the project, thanks to TerraFlex, CommUniverCity needed only two—a driver and a navigator/spotter. To expedite data collection, however, each car had two spotters. Four cars were in the field each day.
Scoring Field Goals
On December 28, CommUniverCity launched the data collection. Dumping sites had been divided into three areas, with three days allotted to complete the documentation. Workers were in the field for an average of six hours each day.
By noon on the first day, they had identified nearly 200 dumping sites. By the end of the second day, some 400 additional sites had been documented, and by the end of the project, nearly 800 sites were identified.
As the data was collected, it was automatically synced to a central server. This boosted productivity since workers did not have to return to the office for manual entry. Data was transferred to the cloud for easy access and to keep all project members in the field and in the office up-to-date on the cleanup progress.
Once the dumping sites were identified, CommUniverCity created maps so city contractor GreenTeam’s haulers could easily find the sites and clean up the illegal dumping materials. Project leaders could also filter, sort and export additional data by form attributes, which provided critical information to city officials on the type of trash being dumped or the amount of hazardous materials collected.
Because data was centralized and organized, the city could later conduct more detailed analysis by area and demographics. Since this project was the first phase of a more comprehensive cleanup campaign, such detailed analysis will be critical: San José plans to use the data captured as a baseline for future assessments and community outreach, with the goal to eventually help deter illegal dumping and efficiently clean up illegally dumped materials.
With Trimble TerraFlex, the city not only collected the data quickly and accurately, but more importantly, it will continue to leverage this data to ensure a cleaner, safer city today and in the future. Using TerraFlex, San José has scored a real touchdown. | WA
Kristine White is a writer based in Silicon Valley. A former editor for the San Jose Mercury News, she writes extensively on geospatial technology. She can be reached at [email protected]. For more information on Trimble’s TerraFlex, visit www.trimbleinsphere.com/terraflex.