Smart City

A smart city is an urban development vision to integrate multiple information and communication technology (ICT) and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions in a secure fashion to manage a city’s assets – the city’s assets include, but are not limited to, local departments’ information systems, schools, libraries, transportation systems, hospitals, power plants, water supply networks, waste management, law enforcement, and other community services. The goal of building a smart city is to improve quality of life by using urban informatics and technology to improve the efficiency of services and meet residents’ needs. ICT allows city officials to interact directly with the community and the city infrastructure and to monitor what is happening in the city, how the city is evolving, and how to enable a better quality of life. Through the use of sensors integrated with real-time monitoring systems, data are collected from citizens and devices – then processed and analyzed. The information and knowledge gathered are keys to tackling inefficiency.

ICT is used to enhance quality, performance and interactivity of urban services, to reduce costs and resource consumption and to improve contact between citizens and government. Smart city applications are developed with the goal of improving the management of urban flows and allowing for real time responses to challenges. A smart city may therefore be more prepared to respond to challenges than one with a simple ‘transactional’ relationship with its citizens. Yet, the term itself remains unclear to its specifics and therefore, open to many interpretations and subject.

Other terms that have been used for similar concepts include cyberville, digital city, electronic communities, flexicity, information city, intelligent city, knowledge-based city, MESH city, telecity, teletopia, Ubiquitous city, wired city.

Sectors that have been developing smart city technology include government services, transport and traffic management, energy, health care, water, innovative urban agriculture and waste management.

Major technological, economic and environmental changes have generated interest in smart cities, including climate change, economic restructuring, the move to online retail andentertainment, ageing populations, urban population growth and pressures on public finances. The European Union (EU) has devoted constant efforts to devising a strategy for achieving ‘smart’ urban growth for its metropolitan city-regions. The EU has developed a range of programmes under ‘Europe’s Digital Agenda”. In 2010, it highlighted its focus on strengthening innovation and investment in ICT services for the purpose of improving public services and quality of life. Arup estimates that the global market for smart urban services will be $400 billion per annum by 2020. Examples of Smart City technologies and programs have been implemented in Milton Keynes, Southampton, Amsterdam, Barcelona and Stockholm.

An important cluster of Smart City technological companies exists in Israel with Tel Aviv being awarded the World Smart City Award in 2014. Israeli companies are implementing Smart City solutions worldwide.

Terminology

Due to the breadth of technologies that have been implemented under the smart city label, it is difficult to distil a precise definition of a smart city. Deakin and Al Wear list four factors that contribute to the definition of a smart city:

1. The application of a wide range of electronic and digital technologies to communities and cities
2. The use of ICT to transform life and working environments within the region
3. The embedding of such ICTs in government systems
4. The territorialisation of practices that brings ICTs and people together to enhance the innovation and knowledge that they offer.

Deakin defines the smart city as one that utilises ICT to meet the demands of the market (the citizens of the city), and that community involvement in the process is necessary for a smart city. A smart city would thus be a city that not only possesses ICT technology in particular areas, but has also implemented this technology in a manner that positively impacts the local community.

Alternative definitions include:

• Giffinger et al. 2007: “Regional competitiveness, transport and Information and Communication Technologies economics, natural resources, human and social capital, quality of life, and participation of citizens in the governance of cities.”
• Smart Cities Council: “A smart city is one that has digital technology embedded across all city functions.”
• Caragliu and Nijkamp 2009: “A city can be defined as ‘smart’ when investments in human and social capital and traditional (transport) and modern (ICT) communication infrastructure fuel sustainable economic development and a high quality of life, with a wise management of natural resources, through participatory action and engagement.”
• Frost & Sullivan 2014: “We identified eight key aspects that define a Smart City: smart governance, smart energy, smart building, smart mobility, smart infrastructure, smart technology, smart healthcare and smart citizen.”
• Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Smart Cities: “A smart city brings together technology, government and society to enable the following characteristics: smart cities, a smart economy, smart mobility, a smart environment, smart people, smart living, smart governance.”
• Business Dictionary: “A developed urban area that creates sustainable economic development and high quality of life by excelling in multiple key areas; economy, mobility, environment, people, living, and government. Excelling in these key areas can be done so through strong human capital, social capital, and/or ICT infrastructure.”
• Indian Government 2014 : “Smart City offers sustainability in terms of economic activities and employment opportunities to a wide section of its residents, regardless of their level of education, skills or income levels.”
• Department for Business, Innovation and Skills,UK 2013: “The concept is not static, there is no absolute definition of a smart city, no end point, but rather a process, or series of steps, by which cities become more ‘liveable’ and resilient and, hence, able to respond quicker to new challenges.

Characteristics

It has been suggested that a smart city (also community, business cluster, urban agglomeration or region) uses information technologies to:

1. Make more efficient use of physical infrastructure (roads, built environment and other physical assets) through artificial intelligence and data analytics to support a strong and healthy economic, social, cultural development.
2. Engage effectively with local people in local governance and decision by use of open innovation processes and e-participation, improving the collective intelligence of the city’s institutions through e-governance, with emphasis placed on citizen participation and co-design.
3. Learn, adapt and innovate and thereby respond more effectively and promptly to changing circumstances by improving the intelligence of the city.

They evolve towards a strong integration of all dimensions of human intelligence, collective intelligence, and also artificial intelligence within the city. The intelligence of cities “resides in the increasingly effective combination of digital telecommunication networks (the nerves), ubiquitously embedded intelligence (the brains), sensors and tags (the sensory organs), and software (the knowledge and cognitive competence)”.

These forms of intelligence in smart cities have been demonstrated in three ways:

1. Orchestration intelligence: Where cities establish institutions and community-based problem solving and collaborations, such as in Bletchley Park, where the Nazi Enigma cypher was decoded by a team led by Alan Turing. This has been referred to as the first example of a smart city or an intelligent community.
2. Empowerment intelligence: Cities provide open platforms, experimental facilities and smart city infrastructure in order to cluster innovation in certain districts. These are seen in the Kista Science City in Stockholm and the Cyberport Zone in Hong Kong. Similar facilities have also been established in Melbourne.
3. Instrumentation intelligence: Where city infrastructure is made smart through real-time data collection, with analysis andpredictive modelling across city districts. There is much controversy surrounding this, particularly with regards to surveillance issues in smart cities. Examples of Instrumentation intelligence have been implemented in Amsterdam. This is implemented through:
   1. A common IP infrastructure that is open to researchers to develop applications.
   2. Wireless meters and devices transmit information at the point in time.
   3. A number of homes being provided with smart energy meters to become aware of energy consumption and reduce energy usage
   4. Solar power garbage compactors, car recharging stations and energy saving lamps.

Platforms and technologies 

New Internet technologies promoting cloud-based services, the Internet of Things (IoT), real-world user interfaces, use of smart phones and smart meters, networks of sensorsand RFIDs, and more accurate communication based on the semantic web, open new ways to collective action and collaborative problem solving.

Online collaborative sensor data management platforms are on-line database services that allow sensor owners to register and connect their devices to feed data into an on-line database for storage and allow developers to connect to the database and build their own applications based on that data.

The city of Santander in Cantabria, northern Spain, has 20,000 sensors connecting buildings, infrastructure, transport, networks and utilities, offers a physical space for experimentation and validation of the IoT functions, such as interaction and management protocols, device technologies, and support services such as discovery, identity management and security In Santander, the sensors monitor the levels of pollution, noise, traffic and parking.

Electronic cards (known as smart cards) are another common platform in smart city contexts. These cards possess a unique encrypted identifier that allows the owner to log in to a range of government provided services (or e-services) without setting up multiple accounts. The single identifier allows governments to aggregate data about citizens and their preferences to improve the provision of services and to determine common interests of groups. This technology has been implemented in Southampton.

Smart City Roadmap

A smart city roadmap consists of four/three (the first is a preliminary check) major components:^[1]

1. Define exactly what is the community: maybe that definition can condition what you are doing in the subsequent steps; it relates to geography, links between cities and countryside and flows of people between them; maybe – even – that in some Countries the definition of City/community that is stated does not correspond effectively to what – in fact – happens in the real life
2. Study The Community: Before deciding to build a smart city, first we need to know why. This can be done by determining the benefits of such an initiative. Study the community to know the citizens, the business’s needs – know the citizens and the community’s unique attributes, such as the age of the citizens, their education, hobbies, and attractions of the city.
3. Develop a Smart City Policy: Develop a policy to drive the initiatives, where roles, responsibilities, objective, and goals, can be defined. Create plans and strategies on how the goals will be achieved.
4. Engage The Citizens: This can be done by engaging the citizens through the use of e-government initiatives, open data, sport events, etc.

In short, People, Processes, and Technology (PPT) are the three principles of the success of a smart city initiative. Cities must study their citizens and communities, know the processes, business drivers, create policies, and objectives to meet the citizens’ needs. Then, technology can be implemented to meet the citizens’ need, in order to improve the quality of life and create real economic opportunities.This requires a holistic customized approach that accounts for city cultures, long-term city planning, and local regulations.

Research

University research labs have developed prototypes and solutions for intelligent cities. IGLUS is a global action research project led by EPFL that is focused on developing innovative governance systems for urban infrastructures as a necessary step for realization of the smart cities vision. IGLUS will also offer the first MOOC on Management of Smart Cities through the coursera platform. MIT Smart Cities Lab focuses upon intelligent, sustainable buildings, mobility systems (GreenWheel Electric Bicycle, Mobility-on-Demand, CityCar, Wheel Robots); the IntelCities research consortium developed solutions for electronic government, planning systems and citizen participation; URENIO has developed a series of intelligent city platforms for the innovation economy focusing on strategic intelligence, technology transfer, collaborative innovation, and incubation, while is offering, through its portal, a global watch on intelligent cities research and planning; the Smart Cities Academic Network is working on e-governance and e-services in the North Sea region. The MK:Smart project is focusing on issues of sustainable energy use, water use and transport infrastructure alongside exploring how to promote citizen engagement in Smart Cities alongside educating citizens about the concept of Smart Cities.

Commercialisation

Large IT, telecommunication and energy management companies such as Cisco, Schneider Electric, IBM and Microsoft have developed new solutions and initiatives for intelligent cities as well. Cisco, launched the Global Intelligent Urbanization initiative to help cities around the world using the network as the fourth utility for integrated city management, better quality of life for citizens, and economic development. IBM announced its SmarterCities to stimulate economic growth and quality of life in cities and metropolitan areas with the activation of new approaches of thinking and acting in the urban ecosystem. Sensor developers and startup companies are continually developing new smart city applications.

Flagship cases

Major strategies and achievements related to the spatial intelligence of cities are listed in the Intelligent Community Forum awards from 1999 to 2010, in the cities of Suwon(South Korea), Stockholm (Sweden), Gangnam District of Seoul (South Korea), Waterloo, Ontario (Canada), Taipei (Taiwan), Mitaka (Japan), Glasgow (Scotland, UK), Calgary(Alberta, Canada), Seoul (South Korea), New York City (USA), LaGrange, Georgia (USA), and Singapore, which were recognized for their efforts in developing broadband networks and e-services sustaining innovation ecosystems, growth, and inclusion. There are a number of cities actively pursuing a smart city strategy: