More than half the world’s population lives in cities, and the percentage is growing rapidly. According to McKinsey, in China alone 350m people – more than the current population of the United States – will move to cities by 2030. To accommodate the millions migrating to cities in search of the coveted middle-class urban life, Brazil, China, and India are raising new cities from dust. Meanwhile, countries like Sweden, UAE, Russia, South Korea and Portugal are also building new cities as magnets for talent and innovation, and the economic growth that they bring. Cities, not nations, now compete for people, ideas and capital, and increasingly, a city’s “smartness” is becoming a major selling point.
A dynamic concept
Many municipalities around the world are exploring the Smart City concept as a way to make themselves better places to live, work, and grow. Smart City solutions are therefore leveraging IT not only to deliver higher quality citizen services more efficiently, but also to affect behavior change in government workers, city businesses, and citizens so cities can develop more sustainably.
A city becomes “smart” when all parts of its infrastructure and government services are digitally connected and optimized. The city’s intelligent infrastructure is powered by three key technologies that share environment and citizen data constantly: sensors, the cloud and smart interfaces. Key-characteristics of Smart Cities therefore are: smart economy, smart mobility, smart governance, smart environment, smart living, smart people.
In a Smart City, the usage is centered on a networked infrastructure to improve economic and political efficiency and enable social, cultural and urban development. Infrastructure means business services, housing, leisure and lifestyle services linked to ICTs, ie mobile and fixed phones, satellite TVs, computer networks, e-commerce, internet services, thus bringing the idea of a wired city as the main development model and of connectivity as a self-fertilizing source of growth.
A fertile field for new technologies
Technologies are available for implementing smart city solutions: pervasive wireless and broadband connections, advanced analytics software, intelligent sensors. The profusion of mobile devices and the use of social media can be integrated by vendors to provide solutions for city governments.
More specifically, wireless sensor networks are the major component supporting the creation of Smart Cities. Thanks to a distributed network of intelligent sensor nodes, a wide range of parameters can be measured for a more efficient management of the city and data are delivered wirelessly and in real-time to the citizens or the appropriate authorities.
All communication-based technology (NFC, RFID, Wi-Fi, Buetooth…) are mobilized in Smart Cities projects and programs, especially for maximizing transportation efficiency, reducing traffic delays, cutting fuel waste and carbon emissions.
A wide range of services and applications
Cities can be seen as financial, commercial, social and cultural hubs and as ecosystems of infrastructure and citizen services. The main services delivered within the city are: Public safety, transportation (connected cars and public transports), utilities (electricity, water and gas distribution), healthcare…
Currently, most cities are deploying, or have deployed, a smart solution in one or several application domains.
Examples in India and in France
India is joining the worldwide race to urbanization. Many initiatives are taking place in the country with projects of existing or newborn cities featuring extended communication systems and gateways:
- The GIFT project in Gandhinagar (Gujarat), a citywide IT network responding quickly during emergencies, energy-efficient district cooling systems instead of air-conditioning and high-tech waste collection systems
- The Wave City project in Ghaziabad (Uttar Pradesh), with special effort in medical care and education
- The SmartCity Kochi (Kerala), an IT Special Economic Zone under construction
In France, Cityzi is the most emblematic French initiative featuring Smart Cities. Based on a combination of smart phones and NFC technology, the Citizy application is gathering telcos, banks, transit system companies and a wide range of service providers. This initiative has been launched in Nice in May 2010.
Worldwide market opportunities
There is a huge and diverse market for ICT-based smart city initiatives and a wide range of solutions are mushrooming around the world. This trend is general as modernization is a common obligation for cities dealing with complex issues such as population growth, climate change, and resource limitations.
Smart Cities therefore stand as a long-term movement, taking the shape of either large-scale initiatives, driven by public authorities and attracting major IT companies or smaller ‘bottom-up’ solutions aiming at solving specific issues such as social interaction.
Globally, the market for technologies that feed into and support Smart City programs and projects are expected to grow on a global basis from $8 billion in 2010 to exceed $39 billion in 2016, accounting for $116 billion in cumulative spending during that period (according to ABI Research).
A bright future
Different studies, performed by major consultancy companies share the same conclusion: Smart Cities will have a brilliant future, especially with application opportunities generated by NFC-based exchanges and transactions.
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