The City of Tomorrow.

Facing challenges with data.

Jonas Beullens – April 2015

Urbanization.Anno 2014 the 600 biggest cities account for:

+ 50% of Global GDP 45% of global population 66% of the world’s energy consumption 60% of its drinking water consumption 70% of its CO2 emissions

These facts already pose major challenges on today’s cities.

Data: McKinsey

Urbanization.Population growth in emerging markets mega cities 2010-2025 in % and absolute (in millions)

Huge population growth will ask for new smart concepts to cover the needs of the newcomers.

Environmental push.Climate change forces cities to take action.• Convenant of mayors (Europe)• 4000 cities (146 mio inhabitants) agreed to meet and exceed the 20% CO2

reduction objective proposed by the EU.

• The C40 group combines 75 megacities and 25% of global GDP. Together they have already taken more than 8000 actions in order to tackle the emission of greenhouse gasses.

Cities, especially dense city centers, represent our best chance to improve quality of life for the greatest number of people across the world.

– The world bank: Cities and climate change-

Earths population will increase significantly with the urban population accounting for almost the entire increase.

CITIES WILL HAVE TO DO MORE WITH LESS

A challenging combination. Dense cities can emit less greenhouse gasses per inhabitant. Cities are key to control global warming.

Smart cities.The internet of things.

In a very near future, the human driven computers (tablets, smartphones, pc’s etc.) will be

a minority on the internet.

Nowadays, ‘embedded systems’ (= everyday systems with sensors and software who are

connected to the internet) do already generate billions of new data streams.

New technologies offer ways to interpret the data and change the data into usable

information. This is what is called the new ‘big data’ revolution.

6 features of smart cities.

waterworld.com

Smart cities share six important sectors that need to work together to achieve a common goal of making a city more livable, sustainable and efficient for its residents. Many cities are setting the first steps to become a smart city. While excelling in one sector can already bring huge improvements to a city, it takes all six features to become a real smart city. In the following slides some examples of each feature are presented.

Smart buildings.The smart buildings of tomorrow will connect their various pieces in a dynamic, integrated and functional way. The smart building will be a building fulfils its mission as a house, a factory or an office while minimizing energy cost, supporting a robust electric grid and migitating environmental impact.The institute for building efficiency

Smart Energy.City-zen intelligent net - Amsterdam

Smart electricity grid equipped with sensors and connected to the internet. This enables the

steering and monitoring of the electricity supply on-distance. This can lead to multiple benefits:

Shorter and less disruptions.

Easier to supply self-generated energy back to the grid.

Easier to incorporate charging stations for e-cars into the network.

Prevent large price increases for electricity transmission thanks to improved efficiency.

Other possible examples: Dim street lightning when no-one is around. Less need for transportation thanks to on-distance monitoring with

sensors.

amsterdamsmartcity.com

Smart Mobility.

The bicing initiative offers more than 420 stations spread round the city where one can use a bike. The bike should be dropped of at another station. This environmental friendly way of transport can be an efficient way of transportation, especially in cities that suffer a lot of traffic jams. Smartphone applications make it possible to track available bikes and parking spots.

Bicing and smart traffic lights- Barcelona

The smart traffic lights can provide green corridors for fire brigades and other emergency vehicles. This can save lifes as todays traffic congestion in big cities reaches enormous heights.

smartcity.bcn.cat

Other possible examples: Optimization of public transportation routes and schedules, life parking information, automatic e-cars charging stations availabilty updates etc.

Smart Water.

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Waterwatchers- Johannesberg

The Waterwatchers application developed by IBM encourages everyone to collect and report issues on local waterways and pipes to a centralized portal. One has to take a photo and answer three simple questions concerning the issue. Afterwards, one can upload the data in real-time to a central database. Every month, the data will be analyzed and aggregated into a meaningful “leak hot spot” map for South Africa.

Ibm.com

Other possible examples: optimization of irrigation systems, presure sensors in waterpipes to observe leaks etc.

Smart public services.Fighting crime

IBM.com

Other possible examples: sensors warning the waste disposal services when dust bins are full, direct online connections between authorities and citizens, quick warnings in case of emergencies etc.

Smart integrated systems.Smart Systems are autonomous and collaborative systems. They bring sensing, actuation and informatics together to get a complete vision on the situation. They combine their functionalities in order to satisfy a certain need together. Systems not only unite multiple technologies, they are strongly tailored to application sectors such as energy, transport, healthcare, security and safety, manufacturing. Europa.eu

Self-driving car – Mercedez BenzThese futuristic cars will drive autonomously to your destination. Thanks to sensor and gps technology they will bring you wherever you want following the fastest path while avoiding traffic jams and without violating speed limits. Through other smart applications they will even be able to locate the nearest available parking spot. Furthermore, the car will drive itself in an environmental friendly and comfortable way. When the car knows about severe traffic jams in the city center, it will even propose to bring you to the nearest subway or train station. It is clear that the autonomous car of the future integrates information from various resources.

A promising future.How smart are cities today?

62,2% is studying the possibilities and the costs of smart city concepts.

18,7% initial pilots set-up.

13,9 full deployments implemented.

5,5% follow up projects deployed.

Based on Cisco and Smart City Counsel November 2014 Survey

All cities are at least considering smart concepts, but the high cost price is the biggest barrier.

“A city is not gauged by its length and width, but by the broadness of

its vision and the height of its dreams”

Herb Caen

Personal note.A smart city is a city where technology makes life easier for its citizens in an environmentally responsible way. Every city is the sum of all its inhabitants and as such a smart city should be to the benefit of anyone, either rich or poor. As an enthusiast backpacker who always tries to mix with the locals it always strikes me how proud people are of their own city, no matter what part of town they live in. While doing my research for this program, I noticed that the many fancy websites did not mention the social function smart cities should play, neither is it even one of the 6 features. Nevertheless, smart city projects should incorporate anyone and should let anyone contribute to the project.

Jonas Beullens