Saturday, January 25, 2014

New York City is using big data to predict fires


There are certain factors that make buildings in New York City more likely to have a fire, including average neighborhood income, the age of the building, and whether it has electrical issues. The city's Fire Department has now catalogued 60 of these factors in a database that ranks buildings in order of their risk of fire, using the results to decide which ones get inspected first.


The new method aligns with a national trend toward using big data to make city services more efficient. Boston uses a similar system to identify which properties should get visits from the police, for example.


In the past, New York's firefighters made sure to hit high-priority buildings like schools and libraries more frequently. But other than that,...


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