Disruptive technologies have revolutionised how we live and work. These technologies have allowed providers to reimagine the way that people interact with their services, making them more accessible and more responsive to real-time demand. In the same way, Smart Cities reimagine the way that citizens interact with the urban landscape, using cutting-edge technologies to create more efficient urban systems and better informed citizens.
A Smart City uses intelligent technology to enhance quality of life in urban environments, for instance by minimising waste, optimising energy usage, or reducing congestion. This is made possible by the Internet of Things, the networked connection between everyday objects, which means that nearly all elements of the urban landscape – including transit networks, energy grids, lighting systems and parking monitors – can wirelessly broadcast their state and activity in real-time. Although new hard infrastructure is sometimes required, these systems can often be superimposed on existing infrastructure through the installation of cheap and discreet sensors. The resulting smart infrastructure is dynamic and reflexive, monitoring its own operation, predicting faults before they occur and optimising the delivery of resources or services to match demand.
Today’s cities need to adapt in order to respond to the global challenges of climate change, population growth, demographic change, urbanisation and resource depletion. The development of information and communications technologies presents an opportunity to transform the vulnerable power- hungry metropolises of today into the resilient low-carbon cities of the future. What’s more, we already have the necessary tools to deliver Smart Cities. Most urban citizens are already equipped with smartphones and tablets, enabling them to access information about their urban environment, and even shape that environment by interacting with other smart technologies around them.