Smart Cities

Smart cities are no longer the wave of the future. They are here now and growing quickly as the Internet of Things (IoT) expands and impacts municipal services around the globe.
While there are many definitions of a smart city, in general, a smart city utilizes IoT sensors, actuators and technology to connect components across the city, and it impacts every layer of a city, from underneath the streets, to the air that citizens are breathing. Data from all segments is analyzed, and patterns are derived from the collected data.



Why we need Smart Cities?

The outcome of our centuries-old model of city growth is skyrocketing inequality. We’re now in a situation wherein the political, economic and social environment is fractured, many citizens distrust elected officials to act on their behalf, and government bureaucracy is seemingly unable to provide efficient and effective services. Needless to say, that’s undesirable on many levels.
The crux of the problem? We continue to build cities that are net contributors to the very problems we seek to solve. Our cities get bigger, commute times get longer, the impact on our environment gets worse. What do we do? We build bigger roads and provide services further away from where people live and don’t take cogent environmental action.
This is a global challenge. Examples in China, India, Africa and here in Australia vividly illustrate the need for smarter solutions to deal with massive population growth, rural to urban migration, and resource depletion.
We need to transform our cities. Not just once, but continuously.

By making parking smarter, people spend less time looking for parking spots and circling city blocks. Smart traffic lights have cameras that monitor traffic flow so that it's reflected in the traffic signals

Director of product marketing and IoT services for Jasper

There are key technologies that make a smart city work

Smart Energy

Both residential and commercial buildings in smart cities are more efficient, using less energy, and the energy used is analyzed and data collected. Smart grids are part of the development of a smart city, and smart streetlights are an easy entry point for many cities, since LED lights save money and pay for themselves within a few years.

Smart Transportation

A smart city supports multi-modal transportation, smart traffic lights and smart parking.

By making parking smarter, people spend less time looking for parking spots and circling city blocks. Smart traffic lights have cameras that monitor traffic flow so that it's reflected in the traffic signals.

Smart Data

The massive amounts of data collected by a smart city must be analyzed quickly in order to make it useful. Open data portals are one option that some cities have chosen in order to publish city data online, so that anyone can access it and use predictive analytics to assess future patterns. Companies such as CommunityLogiq are working with cities to help them analyze data.

Smart Infrastructure

Cities will be able to plan better with a smart city's ability to analyze large amounts of data. This will allow for pro-active maintenance and better planning for future demand. Being able to test for lead content in water in real time when the data shows a problem is emerging could prevent public health issues.

Smart IoT devices

As cities move from millions to billions and then trillions of devices transmitting usable and potentially unusable information, bandwidth efficiency and capacity could be challenged. Short range notification that a user-selected need can be fulfilled nearby, whether it is the location of a subway station or a service, provides convenience without tying up some of the bandwidth of the carrier data networks. Perhaps this will have the side benefit of a reduction in the number of signs and therefore the visual clutter that they cause on our city streets.

Artificial Intelligence is the new electricit

Andrew Ng; MIT, co-founded and led Google Brain, VP Baidu