What are we doing?
The city launched its new website Beacon. Beacon is a mobile-friendly website that notifies businesses about city contract opportunities and provides detailed information about how to apply for them. This website consolidates information and opens opportunities so that more businesses can submit proposals for future opportunities.

What have we learned?
Since September 2015, more than 475 businesses have signed up to use the mobile-friendly website. RFPs posted on Beacon receive 4-5 times the average response rate than in the past.
Sign up for Beacon

What are we doing?
The Department of Innovation and Performance implemented a green procurement policy, in an effort to encourage the city to implement sustainable practices in its daily operations. The three new policies are the following:

• Printing monitoring software. The Department of Innovation & Performance incorporated a software that measures and monitors printing jobs in order to learn departmental paper usage. Data from this software will identify paper usage and will help develop sustainability challenges to decrease paper usage
• ZipCars rental adoption. In order to encourage carpooling and for the city to maintain fewer city-owned cars, city employees can now rent ZipCars if they need to mobilize to places. Encouraging employees carpooling will eventually decrease expenses on gas, insurance and maintenance
• Centralized Trashcans. The Department of Innovation & Performance switched from a side-desk trash can to centralized trash cans and recycling in order to encourage more recycling and waste management. Centralized trash can bins can help the sorting of recycling go faster and yields to a higher quality of recycled material

What are we doing?
The city is working alongside consultants to implement a uniform strategy to purchase technology and find the most efficient tools and services to work across all departments. This will introduce a technology plan that will also encompass security, asset management, and purchasing guidelines.

What are we doing?
This year, the City of Pittsburgh in partnership with TechShop has offered three free memberships and membership discounts to all city employees. TechShop Pittsburgh is a community-based workshop and prototyping studio on a mission to offer access to the tools of innovation. They offer more than 16,000 square feet of workshops equipped with world class tools and equipment, computers loaded with design software, and hundreds of classes each month.

What have we learned?
During the first TechShop presentation, 21 city employees from 14 different departments attended the event. The city partnered with TechShop to provide opportunities for city employees to acquire new skills, explore their creativity, and design something of their own. This year, employees proposed innovative ideas that could be developed with a membership from TechShop and three winners were chosen. They will present their projects to the city and their colleagues and share about their learning experience in TechShop.

Learn more about Techshop

What are we doing?
The city is committed to improving and supporting its employees with continuing training. This initiative aims to engage and encourage employees to learn how to use open data resources such as the Western Pennsylvania Regional Data Center and online programs that will enable city employees to make data driven decisions in their daily operations.

What are we doing?
The Department of Innovation and Performance offers a lunchtime speaker series for city employees about different topics concerning sustainability, technological solutions, and professional topics. In 2015, there were four different talks ranging from Health & Wellness, Security and E-health, informative topics about the region’s industries like Marcellus Shale and its Impact on Utility Market, and topics regarding the environment such as Indoor Air Quality.

What have we learned?
In 2015, there were a total of four events where I&P staff and other city employees learned about different topic areas ranging from health and sustainability to green technology. In 2016, there has been one event and there are two upcoming events. The first one being a presentation by local non-profit organizations in the Northside.

What are we doing?
The Office of the Mayor, through the “Welcoming Pittsburgh Plan,” is developing practices and training tools that will be made available to the public and partners in order to best serve the immigrant community in the city. Under Chief McLay’s leadership, the Bureau of Police has taken the lead in developing training and practices that allow emergency responders to effectively serve residents with different cultural backgrounds and limited English language skills.
Visit Welcoming Pittsburgh

What are we doing?
In April 2015, Mayor Peduto signed an executive order calling for a city-wide policy on Complete Streets and an eventual adoption of design guidelines. “Complete Streets Pittsburgh” aims to improve the quality of life for all Pittsburghers by creating streets that are safe and comfortable for all people, activated public spaces, and connected transportation networks for everyone. This initiative will consider all modes of travel in making mobility recommendations – walking, biking, taking transit, and driving – and create a more livable public realm that encourages active lifestyles.

What have we learned?
The Complete Streets policy was unanimously adopted by the Planning Commission, and affirmatively recommended for city council to adopt as well.
Find out more about Open Streets here

What are we doing?
The city is working towards establishing a locally-preferred alternative for infrastructure to build a Bus Rapid Transit Line (BRT). This line will connect Downtown Pittsburgh, Uptown, Oakland, and the East End in cooperation with the city, Port Authority, and other stakeholders. The BRT will provide a more reliable and energy-efficient method to connect these key neighborhoods.

What are we doing?
As part of the Mayor’s executive order on Complete Streets, the city of Pittsburgh has completed its first-ever citywide count of bicyclists and pedestrians. This study is intended to inform the city’s planning process, and evaluate bike and pedestrian activity to meet demand and the safety of Pittsburgh residents. This report is will to provide baseline numbers for future planning.

What have we learned?
The study was possible by the participation of 76 employees that were stationed in 38 locations across the city. This study located the top five pedestrian locations. These locations showed that in a period of three hours as many as 20,026 pedestrians walked by the area. In addition, baselines for the busiest top five cyclist locations were obtained, showing approximately 3,355 cyclists. This information is vital for the city to move forward developing design and infrastructure policy that will encompass the safety of all residents in the city..
Complete Streets Executive Order | Pittsburgh Bike and Pedestrian Count

What are we doing?
The city of Pittsburgh Environmental Services at the Department of Public Works raises awareness and promotes education on recycling, composting, and waste management through the city website and social media channels. Through its Facebook page and the Department's Twitter account, Pittsburgh residents can find the latest information on recycling and educational events happening throughout the city. the city.

What have we learned?
The city of Pittsburgh Environmental services engages 173 people on Facebook and it reaches approximately 1,318 followers on the Department of Public Works account. There are currently 137 people following the City of Pittsburgh Environmental Services Facebook page and 978 Twitter followers that have access to information regarding recycling and composting in the city through the Department of Public Works account.

What are we doing?
The Department of Public Works with the Department of Innovation & Performance executed a Litter Can Collection Improvement Pilot Management Program. This pilot program was executed with the goal to address and decrease the average litter collection labor hour/can/month[6] by 33 percent. This will yield to a decrease of human capital that could be allocated to higher priority tasks and improving services to residents. The city deployed Enovo Sensors that were attached to public trash cans. The sensors provided detailed data about when trash cans where full and trash should be collected.

What have we learned?
After installing Enovo sensors in 90 trashcans in the 5th division, data indicated that the in some areas, crews needed to be redeployed with higher frequency to collect litter. Information from sensors showed the litter hotspots that required faster deployment and those less active that needed less redeployment and fewer resources. This information allowed the Department of Public works to understand which areas should have greater attention than others within the pilot geographic area.

What are we doing?
The Northside Bin Initiative is a pilot project that distributed approximately 11,000 recycling bins to residents serviced by one recycling route in the Northside are of Pittsburgh. This pilot program was designed to test the impact of switching from a bagged system to provisioned bins. The intended outcomes of this program were to see if converting to bins would increase recycling participation rates of households and improve the quality of recycling material. The pilot program report shows, the city landfill costs from recycling efforts have been declining since 2013. This decrease might be due to an increase of more people recycling. As the city collects higher quality recycling materials it diverts trash to go to landfills, therefore, spends less on landfills costs (Northside Bin Recycling Pilot Program Report).

What have we learned?
The results from the pilot program increased the recycling participation rate by 21 percent in the area where the bins were deployed. According to the study, before the pilot the participation rate was 52 percent and after the bins were distributed it increased to 73 percent. Overall, after the pilot the total participation rate was 77 percent with a combination of both blue bags and bins. The participation rate 77% with a combination of bins and blue bags recycled.
Northside Bin Initiative

What are we doing?
The City of Pittsburgh Environmental Services is investigating whether the city could implement a weekly recycling pickup schedule. The main objective for this initiative will be to expand the collection process in order to collect quality recycling material faster and better serve residents and neighborhoods that have a high demand for recycling collection. After a needs assessment an initiative implementation will be the main goal.

Upcoming

What are we doing?
The city is researching ways to invest in a bio-energy plant by co-hosting seminars with experts to provide insight into the process. The city in partnership with The German Marshall Fund of the United States, and the American Public Works Administration (APWA) Western Pennsylvania Chapter, Gtech, among others held a conference on May 19, 2016. The conference focused on developing real and tangible infrastructure protection strategies against the impacts of climate change while finding new and innovative ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

What have we learned?
The City of Pittsburgh and its partners held a conference about bio-energy plants on May 19, 2016 with the German Marshall Fund.