Efforts are underway to transform Dallas into a Smart City. That designation involves building an advanced network that can monitor everything from a city's energy consumption to when a garbage can needs to be changed.

Trey Bowles is with the Dallas Innovation Alliance, and he talked with KERA about the group's plans for the city.

Interview Highlights: Trey Bowles...

What is a Smart City?

“There’s a lot of different definitions floating around. At the Dallas Innovation Alliance, we like to talk about it as utilizing technology and data to create efficiencies, revenue models and opportunities to create a better city for citizens to work, live and play in."

On if it uses more devices...

"Really it's about creating a network, an infrastructure of different free-standing operational things, buildings, parking lots, parking spots and traffic lights. It could be a lot of different components coming together, but the key is accessing those data points. Leveraging that data to create efficiencies that allow for cost reductions and energy uses in consumption. Create a source of information that allows you to more effectively build out the needs of city. When you look at why cities are going smart? In 30 years, because of the population influx into metropolitan areas, if we don't start to build smart cities and smart technology solutions, we won't be able to handle the amount of population increases we're seeing in those areas. Now it's a very cool exciting innovative thing to do, but in 30 years all cities will have to do it or they won't be able to provide a proper space for all the people who are going to be living in their areas."

On Dallas' West End project...

"What we're doing now is a three-phase process where we're doing the research now, start planning next month and execution will start in 2016. We're trying to uncover what the needs are of the city, as well as what their opportunities are to build out and create a unique living lab for these types of technologies and data solutions to exist. From there we'll come up with an executional plan that is the first of many that would happen across the entire city."

On who will fix the technology when it breaks...

"It's about taking a holistic approach to what creates a more robust and interactive city with its members. It's going to be a collaborative involvement from different groups, both corporations, the city, public-private partnerships and our citizens who will step up to create an advise what the best thing can be for the people who live here."