How Smart is your City?
A smart city is a city which is ‘aware’ of the status of its resources such as transport systems, energy and water usage, sewage levels, environment, infrastructure, housing and security; and uses this information to efficiently manage its resources. The data is generated from a set of interconnected devices (internet of things) with sensors that constantly capture and report about the resources; these sensors can be mounted on traffic lights, water pipes, electric meters, dams, trees, roads buildings and even people. The data is the analysed for patterns and insights that can be used to detect events such as water leakage, flooding, emergencies, crime, power outages, power consumption and wastage, traffic jams, disease spread and housing crisis.
As the era of internet of things catches up, we must be prepared to maximize on increasing the connectivity and making maximum use of the data collected. One good demonstration that caught my attention was when John Donovan elaborated how we could use street lights to bring compute power and connectivity closer to the users. Let’s take a look and see some examples of what is happening all over the world.
Smart Highway in Interstate 85 Georgia
Interstate 85 is being transformed into a smart highway with the goal of creating “zero-carbon, zero-death, zero-waste, zero-impact” roads. The system will run on renewable energy from solar panels fitted on pavements, electric vehicle charging stations and other features such as smart water drainage and tire pressure sensors.
Smart Lighting in Los Angeles and Isle of Wight
Use of connected LED street lights in Los Angeles has resulted in efficient energy use and reduced crime rates by 10%. In a similar case, The Isle of Wight used connected LEd lights and observed lower energy consumption, better visibility and less light pollution.
Smart Parking system in Addis Ababa Ethiopia
Addis Ababa has unveiled a smart parking system that automatically parks vehicles in a 50 floor steel structure. The vehicle is lifted up by an automated lift, payment is done to the system using credit cards. This parking system is highly efficient, ensuring security of vehicles as well as easing traffic congestion.
Norway and Sweden compete for garbage to provide heating to homes
Ever heard of garbage import? Norway and Sweden are efficiently using garbage waste to heat neighboring homes. Collected waste is burnt at high temperatures in waste-to-energy incineration plants creating heat energy that is channeled to homes and businesses. The countries run out of rubbish and are forced to import it from other countries.
Barcelona’s remote controlled irrigation system
The city of Barcelona has developed a smart irrigation system where sensors in the ground closely monitor moisture levels and water flow at specific areas. The irrigation system is directly controlled by the data from the sensors, and only irrigates the right amount of water at the right time according to the weather and plants needs. With this system, water consumption has been optimized, cutting down the municipality water bills by 25%.
Remote monitoring of patients and elderly – Singapore
The population of the elderly in Singapore is increasing; however there are not very many young people left to take care of the aging population. Tata Consultancy Services in conjunction with Singapore
Management University are conducting research about IoT solutions to remotely monitor the well being of the elderly. Sensors will be embedded in wearable devices and also motion sensors in homes that will detect events such as sleeping patterns, accidents, immobility and general health status.
The National Science Foundation smart cities initiative
The National Science Foundation has committed over $ 60M in grafts to the smart cities initiative. The main goal of NSF is ‘to accelerate fundamental understanding and stimulate basic research on frameworks that integrate and operate on data from multiple sources and at multiple temporal and spatial scales, new sociotechnical systems that are interconnected and interdependent, and new technologies for innovative applications and services to enable more livable, workable, sustainable, and connected communities‘. This initiative is calling for proposals in research and planning of future smart sustainable cities and communities.
Smart cities Summer School in Brazil
Brazil will open the first IEEE International Summer School on Smart Cities (IEEE S3C) this summer. The school will attract researchers, students and industry leaders from all over the world. The curriculum is based on a problem solving approach and will touch on topics like: Open data, Data Analytics, Smart mobility, Energy sustainability, Internet of Things (IoT) and platforms for smart cities, Smart city ecosystems e innovation methodologies, Metrics, benchmarks and Standards for smart cities
Acoustic Gunshot Monitoring in New York
To combat crimes, New York is deploying an acoustic gun shot detection mechanism that will report in real time if a gun was fired. The police will receive a smartphone alert and can respond faster to the crime, incresing the chances of catching the criminal.
The world seems to be in s rush to create the smartest cities; China has began development of 500 smart cities in 2017, India plans to have 100 smart cities by 2022. Do you want to know what are the smartest cities all over the world? Here are some articles about the smartest cities in the Asia and Pacific, Latin America and Europe. So, where is the world rushing to? What is your Country doing? Comment below…
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2 comments on “How Smart is your City?”
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Thank you Patricia for a great overview of some of the interesting things happening in the space of smart cities. I found your definition of a smart city really facinanting, in essence a city that is aware of itself, and wanted to share some of the insights I got from living in what was envisioned to be the first zero carbon, zero waste smart city in the world: Masdar City. One of my key learnings from living in the city was that technology should always be a means to an end. Using your analogy: not just aware of itself, but also aware of its impact on people. At Masdar City, everything was monitored (from water and energy use, to when the lights were on), but this information was not available to the inhabitants. We often discussed with my classmates that the best way to make us use less energy and water would be to make the data public or at least available to the individual. Thus to really leverage the power of new technologies, implementation and incentives are key. Another thing I realized at Masdar was that we have a lot to learn from the past as well. If I compare all the innovative technology present on campus including the PRT (an autonomous vehical system running underneath the city https://www.2getthere.eu/projects/masdar-prt/) the most impressive innovation from the utility perspective was the wind tower, reposible for cooling down the entire city through combining ancient techniques with new technology. I think technology and everything you describe above is great, but I would encourage people to view all the technological solutions from a systems perspective, including the users. As an example, IoT solutions remotely monitoring the elderly will likely further decrease human contact, how will this affect the health of the elderly?
Hey Patricia.
This a very nice informative article. Barcelona got my attention though as I have a real experience with their smart infrastructure implementation there. The transportation includes a lot different smart mechanisms to make it as efficient as possible starting from the smart bike sharing, specific time loops for roads to avoid traffic congestion up to great apps facilitating transport. Not even mentioning, the tube system is one of the most modern in the whole Europe. Barcelona has definitely its place among the smartest cities in the Europe along with Amsterdam.