Smart cities use technology and infrastructure to improve the quality of life of their citizens. There are 6 main areas of work around Smart cities
Smart Governance: These are measures and actions that make municipal / local administration more transparent and accessible to citizens. It is aimed to improve the services the city council provides.
Smart Economy: The measures and actions aimed improving the economy of a city. These cities create new business models that increase the attractiveness of the city.
Smart Environment: These are the measures and actions aimed at making the city more sustainable in terms of resources such as energy, water usage, but also managing street lightning, waste, district heating, etc.
Smart Living: The objective is to improve the quality of life of citizens, focusing on the areas of health and safety. An example of this is cybersecurity or emergency management centers.
Smart Mobility: Aims to provide citizens with an efficient, integrated, and sustainable transport system. Urban mobility plans are key to implement more sustainable means of transport.
Smart People: These cities promote education; this leads to greater citizen participation in the management of cities.
All these areas require an infrastructure of sensors located at different points of the city. These sensors are connected to each other and into the cloud. Therefore, excellent connectivity (i.e. 5G, broadband) is essential for smart cities. The combined data from these sensors is used to understand citizens behaviour and preferences. Improvements on cities services and public infrastructure can then be made based on the information contained in this data. Sometimes artificial intelligence and machine learning is required to extract meaningful information from this data.
Check Dublin Smart City initiatives and districts here: www.smartdublin.ie
Enable (https://www.enable-research.ie/) is a collaboration between Industry partners and main Universities in Ireland to harness the full potential of Internet of things in urban and rural communities.