The City of Santa Monica has won two Technology Solutions Awards and received an Outstanding Achievement from the Public Technology Institute (PTI) for three new and innovative technology projects. This is the eleventh consecutive year that the city has competed successfully to win a coveted Technology Solutions Award from PTI.
PC Power Management
Winner, Sustainability Category
Personal computers are sometimes left on regardless of whether they are being used or not. This results in unnecessary energy consumption which drives up costs and increases the generation of greenhouse gasses. Individual power management schemes, available through Windows, have proven ineffective.
A centralized power management system pushes power management policies to workstations through the city network. This has resulted in a 30.8% drop in power consumption, a calculated annual savings of $28,568.39, and 137,890 fewer calculated pounds of greenhouse gases produced each year.
GIS Tools for Annual Homeless Count
Winner, Geospatial Information System (GIS) Category
Counting the homeless is important and this population with its special needs depend on our obtaining accurate statistics. Statistics on the homeless are used to determine Federal, State, County, and City funding levels, to formulate new service programs, to measure the success of service programs, and as part of the U.S. Census.
Every year the city organizes a group of over 250 volunteers who walk an assigned neighborhood on a specific night, counting the homeless individually, recording locations, demographics, and the nature of their shelter. A county agency gathers similar data in local shelters, jail, motels, and hospitals. This data is input into the city’s GIS where it is used to produce maps and reports that provide detailed and accurate statistics on Santa Monica’s homeless population.
Beach Parking Automated Payment System
Significant Achievement, Sustainability Category
The management of beach parking lots in Santa Monica has been problematic for many years. Full time parking attendants can mitigate some of the issues, but not all of them. The Annenberg Community Beach House and its parking lots introduced an additional set of issues and requirements into the mix.
The city has implemented several fully automated multi-bay parking meters (pay stations).as a pilot project. The system, which allows pre-paid parking reservations and provides real time credit card reconciliation, monitoring, and reports, has proven more effective at helping to manage its beach lots than any previous solution. The city has plans to deploy an additional 14 systems in other beach parking lots in the near future.
The Public Technology Institute (PTI) is a national non-profit technology research and development organization based in Washington, DC, representing local governments. The PTI Technology Solutions Awards is a national program recognizing local
