The Food and Environmental Health Agency announced Thursday that a new system with AI capabilities will improve the efficiency of air conditioner drip control.
From May to September, it aims to tackle hundreds of black spots across the city, including more severe water dripping problems and those causing inconvenience to people waiting for public transport.
Speaking on RTHK’s radio program, Deputy Director of Operations Wang Zhishun said that since the peak usually occurs at night, 70% of the more than 300 police officers in charge of drip air conditioning would be deployed to deal with the problem at that time, while the rest would carry out enforcement operations in the morning.
He said the third-generation survey system is equipped with infrared night vision and can observe dripping problems up to a height of 40 stories.
“The third generation is equipped with AI image recognition technology, which helps staff automatically identify the location of water droplets and the water source,” he said.
“This allows us to locate scenes faster. Previously, without this technology, staff had to rely on the naked eye.”
Before the system was available, officers handled about 3,000 cases in all of 2023, Wang said, but that figure nearly tripled to 8,600 last year when the second-generation system was in use.
The department plans to address up to 500 cases of air conditioner dripping sunspots this year, he added.
Editing: Tony Sabine
