Disaster recovery plans are tested by deliberately exercising them and then measuring what actually happened against the targets the organisation committed to: walkthroughs, tabletop exercises, simulations, technical failover and restore drills, and full-scale field exercises. A test that ends with everyone agreeing the plan looks fine proves nothing. A real test breaks something on purpose, … Read more
Noise complaints are mapped by turning a phone call, app report or web form into a geocoded 311 service request record with a category, a status and an assigned city agency. That record gets dispatched, inspected and closed, and then plotted as a point on a hotspot map. Here is how noise complaints are mapped … Read more
Smart city technology is a connected network of sensors, meters, cameras, software and civic apps that a city uses to collect data about how urban services actually work, analyze it centrally, and adjust services such as traffic signals, street lighting, parking, energy, water and waste in near real time. The goal is fewer guesses and … Read more
Dialing an emergency number connects you to a public safety answering point, or PSAP: the call center where trained call takers answer, work out what is happening and where, and send police, fire, or medical crews to the scene. The whole sequence, from routing to dispatch, usually takes minutes. Here is how it actually works. … Read more