14 DAY TRIAL // Networking expert Cisco is reported to join worldwide cities in order to experiment on energy efficiency. Currently present in Seoul, Lisbon, Madrid, San Francisco and Hamburg, the company attempts to find the perfect recipe to spread all over the world.
Cisco has equipped one of San Francisco's municipal buses with wireless networking gear, which allows commuters to surf the web while traveling. The idea is especially useful to the users who are building their route on-the-fly: they can get information on when their connecting bus or train is arriving, or they can use location services to study their best route. The project is expected to make public transportation more appealing and popular. Convincing people to travel by bus rather than by their own cars is aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
The networking expert has devised yet another approach at urban networking in Amsterdam. Cisco has teamed up with Amsterdam's authorities and hey have jointly built regional smart workstations that will be used as satellite office spaces located near the residential areas. Cisco will also implement a new service for the Amsterdam inhabitants, called the Personal Travel Assistant.
The central piece of the new service is a GPS-based handheld device that will be able to track public transportation vehicles such as buses and trains, and display their current position in plain view. The extra functionality will let commuters see where the bus they are expecting is or when it might arrive.
"We will create a replicate-able system," said Cisco CEO John Chambers, speaking at the Connected Urban Development Conference sponsored by the company in San Francisco this week.
If they get successfully implemented, the urban networking plans will bring significant revenue for the company.