Author: Mike Walsh

CIOReview this week selected MetroQuest as a best-in-breed smart city technology solution for uplifting the way urban residents live, work, and communicate.

We love to take the time to celebrate success at MetroQuest, both the success of our customers in achieving outstanding public engagement outcomes and our own success in delivering the best solutions for involving citizens in planning for better, more livable places. Today, we celebrate winning the top 20 Most Promising Smart City Solutions award for 2018 by CIOReview!

Over the past several months, a distinguished panel of CEOs, CIOs, VCs, analysts, and CIOReview’s own editorial board reviewed hundreds of the top companies that provide innovative tools to make cities smarter. They chose MetroQuest among the top 20 at the forefront of delivering modernization for cities.

I would like to personally thank the esteemed panel of judges for recognizing MetroQuest with this award as a vital tool for today’s smart cities. Public engagement is certainly at or near the top of today’s agenda for CIOs, smart city strategists, and urban planners. We believe that’s because the focus for smart cities has become much less about technology and much more about people. While much of the early smart city dialog focused on the technology, it’s now well recognized that the technology needs to connect with and improve the lives of all the people living in cities.

As a member of the American Planning Association’s Task Force for Smart Cities and Sustainability, we advocated that the responsibility of urban planners is to clearly articulate a community’s vision. Smart cities allow government to better serve citizens by improving the feedback loop for the public to voice their opinions.

The clearer the voice of the people, the better the support government agencies can provide.

That’s were we come in with MetroQuest. Our highly engaging surveys are used by governments and firms to involve thousands of citizens in planning for smarter cities. Today’s preferred cloud-based public survey, MetroQuest delivers a highly visual and interactive online experience to educate residents about scenarios and tradeoffs, while collecting informed and quantifiable input. The resulting insights build support for the adoption of great urban and transportation plans that make cities better places to work, live, and play.

Let’s take this opportunity to celebrate a client success story!

Agencies all over America are launching highly impactful MetroQuest surveys to engage the public in the planning process to make their cities smarter this year. A Metropolitan Planning Agency, the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission (SPC) is developing a new regional plan. It recently engaged Michael Baker International to design a MetroQuest Site to seek public input on external forces with the potential to significantly impact the Southwestern Pennsylvania region. Citizen responses – including technology preferences for self-driving vehicles, robotics, broadband, additive manufacturing, and mobility as a service – will help shape the next regional plan. Nearly 1,000 citizens have already responded!

Take a look at the demo version of the Forces of Change survey here! (Note: demo MetroQuest data is not counted toward the final results.)