Smart Cities: What They Are and Why They Matter

A “smart city” is the concept of a community, such as a town or city, that uses technology—specifically the Internet of Things—to improve its services.

This may sound like science fiction at first. But smart city technology is the same technology people already use every day. Smart city companies have simply reused it. They use it to improve a community's infrastructure. When these projects are put in place, a community can work more smoothly and efficiently.

The key to understanding smart city technology is knowing about the Internet of Things (IoT). This is an umbrella term for any physical object that is connected to the internet, often through a mobile app. For example, an IoT door lock would be a lock that one could access even when away from the door in question.

The advantage of IoT in this situation would be the ability to see on a mobile app that you had forgotten to lock the front door of your house.

Instead of going home to fix the problem, you could use the internet to lock your door from far away. It is clear that the ease IoT offers is already becoming a part of daily life for many people.

Of course, accessing the things you need from a remote location is one advantage of the Internet of Things, but there are many others. Some IoT devices are also connected to motion sensors.

A smart light, for example, could detect the motion of someone walking into a room. A smart garbage can could send an alert to its owner when it’s time to take out the trash.

PARKING

It’s a pain to drive around looking for a parking spot. Instead, a driver with access to smart city technology could access a mobile app that would show them available spaces.

This smart service would make life a lot easier for drivers in a smart city project by eliminating all the extra traffic created by people driving around looking for a parking spot and help them save on gas. And, of course, cutting out that traffic is good for the environment as well.

Columbus, Ohio takes its smart parking services further by partnering with smart city companies to provide charging stations for electric vehicles next to certain spaces.

TRAFFIC

A mobile app could show where traffic is bad. This would help cities and their people. The app could even suggest different routes with less traffic. Citizens could also report problems like potholes through the app. This would make it a two-way service.

WASTE

Instead of picking up trash on routine rounds, a smart dumpster would send an alert to the sanitation department in a smart city project. Notice how this is the same concept as the personal trash can above, only repurposed to serve a city.

WATER USAGE

A mobile app can tell citizens when they have used a certain amount of water each month. This is a very new way to partner with a smart city company. Users can set their own preferences. They can also keep track of their water use. This system is not just an idea. Cary, North Carolina, uses it to send water alerts to its citizens.

POLICE SURVEILLANCE

Smart video cameras can help the police department keep the community safe. Many cities already use cameras. These cameras record traffic violations and criminal acts. Smart city companies can provide smart cameras. These cameras come with technology to recognize license plates or faces. They can even send an alert to police if something suspicious happens.

The biggest tech companies are building their own smart city projects. For instance, Bill Gates' investment firm, Cascade Investment LLC, made an announcement in November 2017. They shared plans to build a completely new city. It will be near Buckeye, Arizona.

The new "Bill Gates smart city" will be called Belmont. This community will use solar energy. It will also take advantage of Arizona's easy rules for self-driving cars. This way, it can add smart city technology. Google also has big plans for a "Google smart city." Its sister company, Sidewalk Labs, is building it in Toronto. It will be called Quayside.

This neighborhood will feature smart city technology like raincoats for buildings, heated sidewalks for melting snow in cold weather, and self-driving taxis.

Microsoft smart city tools help governments. These tools allow them to meet the needs of their citizens in existing cities. For example, the government of Auckland, New Zealand, works with Microsoft. They create software and apps to improve transportation and parking. They also track what citizens say on social media.

Microsoft has also worked with Tel Aviv. Their goal was to make the government easier for citizens to access. This system works in two ways. Citizens can send a photo of a problem to the government using the "DigiTel Mobile App." The "Digitel Residents Club" app helps citizens stay updated. It shares news about local businesses and community events. Parents can even sign up their children for school through the app.

This short list of examples alone shows how a “smart city project” can take on a variety of forms. On the one hand, this variety can make the term “smart city technology” difficult because it isn’t very specific. Two places that use different smart technologies for unrelated purposes (traffic surveillance and water usage, for example) are both smart cities. A place is “smart” if it applies all of the above examples or just one.

On the other hand, this ambiguity is what makes the idea work so well. Every city is different: a smart city project that could be useful in New Orleans or Dallas would not be practical for our home base in Shreveport, Louisiana. There is a lot of freedom wrapped up in this idea for each city to decide what smart services would best meet the needs of its citizens.

In our next article, we’ll discuss some of the “smartest” cities in the world, what makes them unique, and what we can learn from them, even in rural areas.

We will look at how governments have used smart city technology. This will help us find easy solutions. Small towns can use these solutions to offer better services. These services will be more efficient and convenient. They will also be better for the environment. Subscribe to our newsletter to learn more.

Abstract descriptions of smart cities are not as helpful as looking at specific projects. Almost every real program uses sensors, a network, a data platform, and a decision. These decisions used to be made on a set schedule. Now, they are made based on evidence. The examples below are often implemented first by small and mid-sized cities. This is because these projects pay for themselves within one budget cycle.

Caption: the smart city technology examples with the clearest operational case for smaller municipalities.

The hardware for these programs involves tough tasks. Enclosures must withstand weather and vandalism. Power budgets need to last ten years.

Products must also pass certification for public use. This is standard product engineering, but with very strict demands.

Our electronics design and design for manufacturing teams build devices like these.

We use the same product development process as for consumer hardware. However, our environmental testing takes longer.

Smart city technology usually fits into four main areas. These are transportation, public services, safety, and buildings. A project succeeds if its data reaches a person who must act on it. This is more important than the sensor itself. Many projects fail if this link is missing.

Payback calculations mainly depend on labor, not hardware. A bin sensor saves money faster in a city with high fuel and overtime costs. This is true even if it is the same sensor used in a smaller town. The sensor saves money by cutting out two collection trips per week. Therefore, pilot projects should focus on a route or area, not just the technology itself.

Cities that put the go/no-go threshold in writing before installation reach a decision in one budget cycle. Cities that do not tend to accumulate pilots that neither scale nor stop, which is the most expensive outcome available.