UrbanLogiq, Coquitlam launch park pilot project

The move aims to foster smarter, tech-driven solutions, with a goal of helping the city better shape its policies and strategies. The project was made possible through Project Greenlight, a regional procurement platform fast tracking innovation into the hands of governments.

“We are incredibly excited about partnering with the City of Coquitlam,” says UrbanLogiq CEO and Co-Founder Mark Masongsong. “Our core mission at UrbanLogiq has always been to unlock the potential of cities through data-driven insights.”

The two-year pilot project will use UrbanLogiq’s services to identify how to optimize and improve city services led by the City’s Economic Development, Environment and Public Works, Parks, Recreation, Culture and Facilities divisions.

UrbanLogiq’s platform will support with the anonymized centralization and visualization of data on economic development, transportation, collisions, and park visitation in order to:

Identify high-collision sites and work to ameliorate them. UrbanLogiq’s platform will enable staff to identify and analyze high-risk crash locations based on multiple variables. The tool will allow users to filter by different crash parameters, facilitating decision-making for improved road safety.

Support economic development initiatives. UrbanLogiq’s platform will enable the visualization of business health in the city, harnessing up-to-date census, business licensing, and other anonymized data to support staff with assessing commercial vibrancy in Coquitlam’s city centre. This tool will also help analyze the economic repercussions of significant events based on spending patterns.

Enable better resource management and planning in parks. The UrbanLogiq platform will offer insights such as weekly, monthly, and yearly visitor counts, and provide the insights necessary for staff to pivot or focus on specific park areas.

“This collaboration allows us to apply our advanced analytics to create real-world benefits,” adds Masongsong. “By teaming up with a forward-thinking city like Coquitlam, we’re not just envisioning a better future; we’re actively building it.”

The UrbanLogiq platform is a tool designed for government officials to facilitate the access and understanding of data in order to make data-driven decisions with the insights provided. The company specifically defers the decision to public officials, whom it sees as the experts in their respective domains.

UrbanLogiq also has an ongoing partnership with the City of Nanaimo to update and transform its transportation data management system using the UrbanLogiq platform. The result allows staff to quickly and easily analyze crash data to allocate resources and identify high priority locations. The collaboration replaced a system that had been in place for 15 years and needed change.

The company works with many cities in Canada including the cities of Surrey, Ottawa, Kelowna as well as the Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas (TABIA) and more.

“Seeing cities adopt this kind of comprehensive approach — from improving road safety to invigorating the local economy and enhancing public spaces — speaks to the transformative power of strategic alliances,” comments John McPherson, Senior Manager of Economic Transformation at the Vancouver Economic Commission. “The collaboration facilitated by Project Greenlight, between the City of Coquitlam and UrbanLogiq, really epitomizes the potential of data-driven civic innovations.”

Using UrbanLogiq aligns with the city’s environmental and sustainability initiatives, which lays out a flexible framework to guide decisions and ensure the long-term resiliency and sustainability of the community.

The initiatives were approved by the City of Coquitlam council in January 2022, with a focus on the long-term resiliency and sustainability of the community. Highlighting the use of parks was also identified in the city’s Environmental Sustainability Plan, with a 2020 survey showing a desire for how parks are used and accessed as a key desire from residents.

“As cities like Coquitlam set the benchmark, it offers a vivid blueprint for other cities to holistically enhance economic vibrancy and well-being,” says McPherson.