Smart cities will improve the lives of citizens and businesses
Smart (or intelligent) cities are urban conurbations that use technology to offer residents a better quality of life and make public services more efficient, while reducing the environmental impact. This process is made possible via the use of high tech systems including sensors, monitoring devices, the Internet of Things (IoT), wireless connectivity and data analysis.
Access to the information gathered, allows for management of various aspects of daily life in the city such as traffic, public lighting, refuse collection, air quality, energy consumption, security and mobility. This data is processed to provide information in order to improve such services.
The future importance of smart cities
The creation of smart cities is included as one of the most important strategies in the UN’s 2030 Agenda, as this new residential model could hold the key to reaching vital sustainability and energy efficiency objectives in the near future, according to experts.
By definition, a city can only be classed as ‘smart’ if the technologies it uses are clearly aimed at improving the use of resources and reducing emissions.
If these principles are respected, urban evolution (which is needed today more than ever), can be achieved. This is due to the fact that even though they only occupy a mere 3% of the earth’s service, the great metropolises are responsible for:
- 60-80% of energy consumption;
- 75% of carbon emissions.
In addition to these concerning statistics, another important point is the continuous expansion of urban areas, which exert increasing pressure on services such as the water supply, sewage systems and refuse collection, environmental issues and public health.
How does an intelligent city work?
The main objective of smart cities is to improve the lives of its citizens, via the adoption of efficient digital solutions. A group of decision-makers including politicians, urban planners and technicians is tasked with finding solutions to meet the population’s needs and must establish optimal strategies to follow in order to offer residents up to date, high performing services.
To facilitate this, real time data gathering ensures a solid basis for developing advanced and reliable technological solutions. A closer look at data gathering reveals it to be extremely useful in the following contexts:
- Traffic monitoring, helping citizens to estimate journey times using the city’s road network and find alternative options to avoid traffic jams;
- Air quality analysis, which means areas with high levels of pollution can be identified and measured introduced to make the air cleaner;
- The calculation of the energy efficiency of buildings (whether public or private), as well as the promotion of renewable energy sources (especially solar and wind power), in order to reduce harmful emissions.
The information mentioned above can be acquired not only from specific sensors and IoT devices located at various strategic points across the urban area, but also thanks to the input from citizens themselves via the use of special applications. For example, people can report problems such as holes in the road, lack of public lighting in certain areas, etc.
The system must then pass on these reports to the appropriate departments, so that they can take action to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the citizen who first reported the problem can continue to monitor the progress of repair work through notifications received via the app.
This kind of interaction between man and machine enables more efficient, safer and more sustainable cities to be created, improving the quality of citizens’ lives and reducing the environmental impact of human activity.
Translated by Joanne Beckwith
