In preparation for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics, Rio de Janeiro has established a huge state-of-the-art surveillance space, boasting 80 interchangeable digital panels, 450 cameras, 80 square metres of surveillance screen space, and an awesome Batcave-esque name: the Control Room. I don’t know how they paid for it either.

The Control Room is part of IBM’s Smarter Cities initiative, which it’s been promoting since 2007.

Initially put together in the wake of the torrential downpours in April 2010 that saw 250 dead and 10 000 homeless to handle civil response to flooding, the scope of the Control Room has expanded considerably, monitoring the city’s transportation, water, weather and energy constantly, with a tricked out Google Maps display indicating the location of schools, hospitals, car accidents and real-time traffic updates.

Says Ops Center Chief Technology Officer Alexandre Cardeman;

Nowhere else do you have the guy in charge of the train system working with everyone else in the same room. So when there’s a car accident, we can zoom in and read the license plate, we can already see where the closest Municipal Guard is, start to divert traffic and alert the nearest ambulance by GPS, because we’re all integrated.

It actually looks like it’s working pretty well, given that the Control Room has helped co-ordinate the Paul McCartney show earlier this year (which had about 45 000 attendees) without a serious hitch, and the world’s biggest music festival, Rock in Rio (which had about 700 000 attendees) earlier this month.

So, you know, yay for Big Brother-hosted sporting events.

[Source: TDB]