SMART CITY

 

A smart city uses digital technologies or information and communication technologies (ICT) to enhance quality and performance of urban services, to reduce costs and resource consumption, and to engage more effectively and actively with its citizens. Sectors that have been developing smart city technology include

·        government services,

·        transport and traffic management,

·        energy,

·        health care,

·        water and waste.

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. 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

Major technological, economic and environmental changes have generated interest in smart cities, including climate change, economic restructuring, the move to online retail and entertainment, ageing populations, 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 programmers 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 Southampton, Amsterdam ,Barcelona and Stockholm.

It has been suggested that a smart city also

·        community,

·        Business cluster,

·        urban agglomeration or region  use information technologies to:

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.

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.

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:

Bletchley Park often considered to be the first smart community.

·        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.

·        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.

           Hong Kong Cyberport 1 and Cyberport 2 Buildings

·        Instrumentation intelligence:

Where city infrastructure is made smart through real time data collection, with analysis and predictive 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:

Ø A common IP infrastructure that is open to researchers to develop applications.

Ø Wireless meters and devices transmit information at the point in time.

Ø A number of homes being provided with smart energy meters to become aware of energy consumption and reduce energy usage

Ø Solar power garbage compactors, car recharging stations and energy saving lamps.

Some major fields of intelligent city activation are:

Innovation economy	Urban infrastructure	Governance
Innovation in industries, clusters, districts of a city	Transport	Administration services to the citizen
Knowledge workforce: Education and employment	Energy / Utilities	Participatory and direct democracy
Creation of knowledge-intensive companies	Protection of the environment / Safety	Services to the citizen: Quality of life

Platforms and technologies:

The rise of 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 sensors and 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.

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 Smarter Cities  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.

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), Tehran (Iran) and Singapore, which were recognized for their efforts in developing broadband networks and e-services sustaining innovation ecosystems, growth, and inclusion.