Portland scuppers 'Smart City' mobility analytics plan

A plan to track mobility patterns of how people move throughout the urban area of Portland, Oregon, was scuppered due to concerns about data quality, transparency, and privacy.

Portland Metro had planned to use mobile tracking data to inform decision-making about the planning of bike lanes, road repairs, and bus services. 

According to reports, Portland Metro decided to pull out largely because as a series of disputes with Google's Sidewalk Labs spin-off Replica over data quality, transparency, and privacy. Conversely, Replica says it was unwilling to share data to the level of detail requested by the city.

Last year, a Sidewalks Lab project to build a smart city in a disused waterfront area of Toronto also fell apart. An independent review panel had criticised the plan as 'tech for tech's sake', with some of the proposed elements 'irrelevant or unnecessary'.