A SMART CITY ARTICLE The Kingdom of New Atlantis

INTRODUCTION:

 Smart cities are defined as the environment where any network related services are made more flexible and design in the way that they can improve their efficiency and sustainability. This is being done by making use of information and telecom technologies. The main objective to do so is to improve the way of living of the habitants. The purpose of smart cities is to provide an environment to habitants that are more green, safe and secure and friendly where operations can be performed with much more efficiency. Smart city constitutes of multiple components that include smart transport and infrastructure, smart healthcare and technology and smart energy as well. The word smart is to make all these facilities efficient and faster with less wastage in terms of cost and time. Information technology is the key here that is helping in transformation of conventional cities towards the smart cities. Within the umbrella of smart cities, two technologies Internet of Things and Big Data play a very crucial role in achieving that.

WHAT IS A SMART CITY?

A smart city is a framework, predominantly composed of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), to develop, deploy, and promote sustainable development practices to address growing urbanization challenges.

The technologies influential smart cities are beginning to analysis ways for city dweller to live a better life that is safer, cleaner and more environmentally-friendly. The smart cities technology give better requirements of city living, from self-reporting utilities, smart streetlights and traffic lights, and autonomous vehicles, to automatic emergency systems that create efficiencies, improve the quality of services and increase safety. The Kingdom of New Atlantis Smart Cities become the most-populous States in the world by 2030, making it the home to the biggest and the most under-penetrated market for global manufacturers and service providers. It is preceding generations, this rising population is also changing to top tier cities of the countries giving increase to new megacities expected to generate 90% of economic growth, with potential to apply modern technologies and infrastructure, promoting better use of scarce resources. 

For instance;

Connected traffic lights receive data from sensors and cars adjusting light cadence and timing to respond to real-time traffic, reducing road congestion. 

Connected cars can communicate with parking meters and electric vehicle (EV) charging docks and direct drivers to the nearest available spot. 

Smart garbage cans automatically send data to waste management companies and schedule pick-up as needed versus a pre-planned schedule. 

And citizens’ Smartphone becomes their mobile driver’s license and ID card with digital credentials, which speeds and simplifies access to the city and local government services. 

Together, these smart city technologies are optimizing infrastructure, mobility, public services, and utilities.

WHY DO WE NEED SMART CITIES?

Urbanization is a non-ending phenomenon. 

Today, 47% of people worldwide live in cities, a proportion that’s expected to reach 80% by 2050. 

With the overall population growth, urbanization will add another 2.5 billion people to cities over the next three decades.

Environmental, social, and economic sustainability is a must to keep pace with this rapid expansion taxing our cities’ resources.

One hundred and ninety-three countries agreed upon the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda in September 2015 at the United Nations.

But we all know how centralized decisions and actions can take time, and the clock is ticking.

The good news Is;

Citizens and local authorities are certainly more agile to launch swift initiatives, and smart city technology is paramount to success and meeting these goals.

WHAT MAKES SMART CITIES SUCCESSFUL?

In addition to people, dwellings, commerce, and traditional urban infrastructure, there are four essential elements necessary for thriving smart cities:

a). Pervasive wireless.

b). Connectivity.

c). Open data.

d). Security you can trust.

e). Flexible monetization schemes.

CAN SMART CITIES BE SECURED AND TRUSTED?

In digital cities, connected cameras, intelligent road systems, and public safety monitoring systems can provide an added layer of protection and emergency support to aid citizens when needed. 

FOUR CORE SECURITY OBJECTIVES FOR SMART CITY SOLUTIONS.

All ecosystem partners – governments, enterprises, software providers, device manufacturers, energy providers, and network service providers – must do their part and integrate solutions that abide by four core security objectives:

Availability: Without actionable, real-time, and reliable data access, the smart city can’t thrive. How information is collected, distilled, and shared is critical, and security solutions must avoid adverse effects on availability.

Integrity: Smart cities depend on reliable and accurate data. Measures must be taken to ensure that data is accurate and free from manipulation.

Confidentiality: Some of the data collected, stored, and analyzed will include sensitive details about consumers themselves. Steps must be taken to prevent unauthorized disclosure of sensitive information.

Accountability: Users of a system must be responsible for their actions. Their interactions with sensitive systems should be logged and associated with a specific user. These logs should be difficult to forge and have reliable integrity protection.

CAN SMART CITIES BE SECURED AND TRUSTED?

In digital cities, connected cameras, intelligent road systems, and public safety monitoring systems can provide an added layer of protection and emergency support to aid citizens when needed. 

But what about protecting smart cities themselves from vulnerabilities? 

How can we defend against hacking, cyber-attacks, and data theft? 

In cities where multiple participants share information, how do we trust that participants are who they say they are? 

And how do we know the data they report is true and accurate? 

The answers lie in physical data vaults and strong authentication and ID management solutions.

Smart cities can only work if we can trust them.

Citizens engage with smart city ecosystems in various ways using Smartphone and mobile devices and connected cars and homes. Pairing devices and data with a city’s physical infrastructure and services can cut costs and improve sustainability. 

COMMUNITIES CAN IMPROVE ENERGY DISTRIBUTION, STREAMLINE TRASH COLLECTION, DECREASE TRAFFIC CONGESTION, AND IMPROVE AIR QUALITY WITH HELP FROM THE IOT.

Smart cities makes use of the digital technologies and then utilize them in providing better experiences to the habitants for public services and better utilization of sources when on the same time adding less negative impacts over the environment. A smart city can be comprised of various components. It is not necessary that a city should be having all these components in order to be considered as smart, a city can deploy a few of those components yet can be considered as the smart city. Few of them are as follows:

a). Smart Transportation

b). Smart Governance

c). Smart Energy

d). Smart Citizen

e). Smart Building

f). Smart Healthcare

g). Smart Technology

Smart Cities Standards:

Worldwide the smart cities are characterized as hugely diverse in terms of their requirements and the components they comply to. However ISO that is International Organization of Standardization provide the standards that shall be complied too to ensure the quality of services, their efficiency as well as the security insurance. Standards are of utmost importance and play crucial role in smart cities development. They also helps in formulization of the requirements required for monitoring smart cities performance, technically and functionally. Standard are also used to deal with the issues that come across in development of smart cities like water issues, transportation issues, security and climate changes. ISO has also been playing a major role in formulating such standards that can be applied to smart cities including e-Health standards, smart grids and smart transportation systems. This standard is capable of providing 100 indicators, indicating city performance and these additionally contain forty six main and fifty four additional indicators. Few of the indicators are related to the domain of economics, finance, energy and lastly but not the least environment. These indicators are then used for civic entities to baseline performances, comparing them with different cities data and identification of lessons learned in order to suggest improvements in services provided. 

Characteristics of Smart Cities:

 There are many attributes of smart city and they include provide improve quality of life, sustainability and over all smartness that improve the living standard of habitants. Sustainability can only be achieved when there is an improvement in governance of city, improved infrastructure, better health facilities and waste and pollution is in control and any issues related to these factors are dealt. The measurement to quality of life can be made by taking into consideration the wellbeing of financial and emotional state of habitats.

 Smart city is comprised of four main factors which are first and foremost environment, society, economy and lastly the governance. The society factor contributes that the city is for its citizens and should be providing all comfort and facility to the habitants. The economy factor deals with the concept that smart cities shall be providing job opportunities to the habitant and hence contribute in increased economy. The environmental factor states that city can provide sustainability for the current as well as the future generations by maintaining its current state and resources. Lastly the governance deals with the concept that there shall be robustness in city capability to create and conform to the policies created and other factors.

BENEFITS OF SMART CITIES;

SMART CITIES AND TECHNOLOGIES HAVE MANY PRACTICAL AND ECONOMIC BENEFITS:

1. Environmental Impact

Reducing the CO2 footprint is the main driver behind the development of smart and sustainable cities. Improving energy efficiency and storage, waste management, traffic conditions are among the greatest advantages.

2. Optimized energy & water management

Smart grids and smart water management are recurring themes of smart cities. Energy consumption and potable water monitoring ensure the availability of energy and the quality of tap water across the city.

3. Transportatio

Clean and efficient transportation of goods, services and people is essential. In the hope of optimizing mobility, many cities are turning to smart technologies to ease traffic congestion and provide users with real-time updates.

4. Security

Safety is a priority for all cities. The accelerated development of smart cities should allow municipalities to better monitor their citizens thanks to CCTV cameras with facial recognition. In addition, state-of-the-art CCTV cameras are also equipped with motion and smoke detectors, as well as fire alarms.

The Internet of Things (IoT) in Smart Cities:

 The infrastructure of the smart city is based on the development of Internet of Things (IoT). It can also be understood as the IoT is the technical key of the smart cities. There must be the following three core features contains in smart cities i.e. interconnection, instrumentation and intelligence delivered by the IoT devices. This is reflected from the analysis of smart city that IoT can play an important role. The routine usage of IoT such as smart meters, smart sensors, radio-frequency identification (RFID) and smart phones in core development of infrastructure of smart cities make more reliable and feasible place to live. The infrastructure IoT may consist of many components together with sensors, electronics, software, networks and firmware. The network of related physical objects (called “things”) together with sensors, smart phones, computers, wearable devices, actuators, buildings, homes, vehicles, structures, and energy systems is called IoT. This is the responsibility of IoT to communicate the different types of devices and applications for getting progressively smart, secure services and reliable. A big number of sensors consisting IR, RFID, and GPS, infrastructure, connect the buildings, transport, networks and services through ICT. There are many responsibilities of IoT infrastructure i.e. information communications and exchange, location determination, intelligent recognition, monitoring, tracking, identity management and pollution control.

Conclusion

The smart cities concept has gained a lot of attention lately and it will most likely continue to do so in the future. Cities are publishing smart plans, related conferences are trending and more and more books are being written on the subject.

Smart technologies can provide solutions for cities by helping them save money, reduce carbon emissions and manage traffic flows. But the complexity of the agenda is hindering its progress. It involves a large number of stakeholders (local authorities, citizens, technology companies and academics) each having their own vision of what a smart city should be; most of the debate gets bogged down on trying to understand what ‘smart’ means rather than focusing on how it can help cities meet their goals. Moreover, since the market for smart technologies is relatively new, it needs new business models and ways of working which are yet to be developed and implemented.