Smart cities use data and digital technology to solve city problems. Examples include an app that helps drivers find parking spaces, or energy usage meters that monitor water and power consumption.
Some models of the smarter city focus on sustainability and promote civic participation in governance. Others emphasize the need for cities to be equitable in their deployment of digital technologies.
Energy
A smart city’s infrastructure focuses on sustainable energy, environmental sustainability and comfortable living conditions. Solar panels adorn rooftops, wind turbines occupy city skylines and smart sensors and meters track electricity usage.
These systems optimize energy consumption, improve building automation and reduce costs for residents. Smart parking solutions also allow citizens to find spaces, while joggers and cyclists receive real-time recommendations for safe routes.
Smart cities rely on robust data, digital technology and a deep understanding of the city’s challenges to implement solutions. But a unilateral focus on technology and a lack of citizen participation can present problems. For example, the Covid-19 pandemic demonstrated how data governance and government services can leverage smart city tech to bolster public safety. For instance, Singapore assembled a map of confirmed Covid-19 cases and Taiwan deployed a system that tracks cellular signals to enforce home quarantine.
Transportation
The core of a Smart city is its ability to manage traffic and public transit in real-time. With advanced systems that monitor situations and communicate with drivers through navigation apps, cities can reduce congestion and emissions, while also lowering maintenance costs.
For example, a system can send an alert to all relevant parties about a bus stop that’s out of service, and it can provide up-to-the-minute information on how a broken water main is affecting traffic patterns, schools, businesses and homes in the area.
Municipal officials can use Smart transportation solutions to lower operational costs and strengthen cybersecurity resilience. Digi’s transportation cellular routers and remote management platform are used in many such projects today. This makes it easier to build the intelligent infrastructure needed for a smarter future.
Safety
In a well-connected smart city, data from a range of sensors is instantly available to police forces. This enables them to act quickly against unruly crowds or even detect floods before they hit. AI can help make sense of this data. NEC’s MAG1C Sense solution, for example, applies semantic analysis to identify trends and risks, and then presents them clearly on an interactive map or 3D building model.
Other Smart city solutions use Big Data to provide real-time insight into things such as traffic, air quality, and the fill level of waste containers. Such systems help to reduce energy consumption, optimise traffic signals and bus routes, or identify the best route for joggers based on air pollution. However, these technologies must be designed with cyber security in mind.
Education
A smart city’s vision requires that education evolve with the future needs of business and society. Educators may need to move away from classroom-based learning toward experiences that take place in multiple spaces and environments.
Universities have begun to partner with cities on smart city research. Portland State University’s Digital City Testbed Center worked with the city to explore air quality sensors and a fleet of internet-connected garbage trucks that prioritize areas in need of attention.
This approach has a number of benefits, such as leveraging the university’s connections to the city when applying for grants. It also gives city officials a chance to see the impact of their work on the public. This can help build support for future projects. It also helps to define the socially acceptable boundaries of observational technology.
Health
Smart city technology makes life more accessible for residents and improves the quality of their daily lives through connectivity and data. The data collected by Smart devices allows citizens to track their own health, such as sleep patterns and nutrition, and helps cities respond quickly to public safety issues like the recent pandemic.
Smart cities can also help improve the health of their residents by implementing technologies to measure and monitor air pollution. One example is the Bosch Climo climate monitoring system, which uses sensors throughout a city to collect data on local air quality and provide information to the public.
A smart city encourages entrepreneurship, provides opportunities for new challenges, and serves the city’s residents in multiple aspects such as culture, education, community, health, transportation, leisure, employment, housing, economy, and welfare effectively enhancing human well-being.