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Nowadays, we assist to a rising global smart city hype. Cities around the globe are constantly looking to embrace « smartness », in other words, the ability to incorporate automation, data, technology and innovation into their operations. As COVID-19 is providing an opportunity for tech companies and governments to continue mobilizing funds into emerging digital infrastructures, we thought it would be interesting to develop the smart cities conversation around four main questions:
To answer these four questions, we turned to our CEO and smart city guru, Bernard Têtu, to give us an insight into how technology can be used to deliver connected solutions for cities around the world and also what can be expected from smart cities in the future. Here’s what we learned.
In some ways, we are already there. All the necessary technologies exist, be it sensor & control electronics, telecommunication networks and they don’t all have to be 5G, because for most of these applications (ex: control & monitoring) free wireless mesh networks will amply do the job.
Smart means many things to different people. If we talk about infrastructure, it may mean automation, or real-time monitoring, that will supply information on health status, statistics of power consumption, alerting for temperature, and provide essential & insightful information about remote assets. That’s mainly for infrastructure which is a big part of the assets of cities, and that helps to deliver on the reliability that is expected to render the proper services to the citizens.
Then, there are the other types of services: transportation, traffic control, healthcare, and security, that not only help raise our level of comfort, but also play an important role in the effectiveness (and productivity) of our societal, commercial and industrial models.
A perfect Smart City would be a lot more equipped to gather information in a more real-time manner and to create much more flexible decision-making processes in order to quickly eliminate the bottlenecks in the system.
We have been able to witness during these past 2 years that everything is tied together: any bottleneck in one of these spheres will have an important effect on several of the other sectors. A perfect Smart City would therefore be a lot more equipped to gather information in a more real-time manner and to create much more flexible decision-making processes in order to quickly eliminate the bottlenecks in the system.
Obviously, some unpredictable situations like Covid and climate change can happen anytime. However, if we can gather insightful information more accurately & quickly than ever before, we will continue to improve our effectiveness to adapt, and keep delivering the essential services to the population we serve.
Nowadays, we are witnessing a little bit more real-time monitoring of assets and a lot more tracking & monitoring of people, via the use of security cameras, albeit communities are now starting to be much more conscious and preoccupied by privacy issues:
The second major trend that we have witnessed in the past years was our ability to deliver much more helpful & real-time information to our citizens, for public transportation, asset failures, and so many other public services. And that again, even if most of it can be simply implemented, has an important impact on the comfort level and effectiveness of a community (from households to commercial to industrial).
Smart city technologies should be seen as a support for cities to increase their efficiency, productivity and autonomy and not as a threat.
First, city and municipal officials sometimes tend to see the arrival of technology as a danger, in the sense that it could eliminate or threaten jobs and harm the local economy. Yet, as we speak, there is not only a shortage of manpower, but also a lack of training of personnel in these new technologies. It is important to make clear that the terminology “smart cities” should be seen as a support for cities to increase their efficiency, productivity and autonomy, and not as a threat.
In the case of street lighting systems, in addition to putting in place the appropriate information infrastructure, they extract information in real time that provides an up-to-date overview of the city’s electrical infrastructure. In addition to being fast and accurate, these systems require less personnel and are fully linked to the information chain. They therefore represent a great potential for the technological future of cities.
Secondly, telecom companies tend to favor the use of the cellular network, a technology that is not at all optimal in the long term. In fact, all the cellular networks that are currently deployed are already expected to decline in the next 5-8 years. On the other hand, wireless mesh radio technology is not only more efficient but will be functional for the next 25 years. In this sense, we are not embarrassed to say that the lifetime of the cellular technology platform is one of the points that kill the potential of smart city applications.
Without having a crystal ball, I would say we have to severely start controlling our consumption of many types of goods, for the sake of the planet, our health and eventually the economic system as a whole.
Transportation is also an issue we must improve. That will probably mean more densification of cities, which in turn should come with a better offering of public transportation if people are to be attracted to city centers. Electrification of transport is obviously a topic. We all must realize that this “volume” of power will still have to be produced (hopefully not from fossil fuel) and transported to its destination. In any case, not all cities are currently properly equipped to bring this volume of electricity into their city centers.
We are witnessing more & more system integration to timely distribute information to the proper teams that will execute in a more synchronized way.
We choose to live in Cities for various reasons, and mainly for the availability of services: commerce, healthcare proximity, cultural & entertainment events & for the security cities provides. On that aspect, effective security services have always relied on quick & reliable communications. The technologies do exist, and we are now witnessing more and more system integration to timely distribute information to the proper teams that will execute in a more synchronized way. Think of situations that may simultaneously involve police, ambulances, hospitals, fire fighters, utilities, etc.
Also, Smart edge-devices will enable us to collect a lot timelier information (and mind you without necessarily spying on us) for such things like monitoring certain noise (car accidents, gunshots, etc.), keep an eye on road conditions, water & sewer systems, air quality, and so many other simple applications that will certainly help us continuously shape our communities and ensure their technological development.
Canadian serial entrepreneur for more than 35 years, Bernard Têtu is behind the creation and investment of several well-known technology companies.
In 2006, he created and founded Dimonoff, an innovative pioneer in wireless control and remote monitoring technologies, being involved in 5 of the largest smart city projects in the world.
Our latest white paper shed light on the main types of smart city vendors and cover the key criteria for choosing an open and future-proof smart city system.
