Smart Cities have been hailed as one of the most important developments in cities particularly for governments looking to develop more efficient cities.

What Are Smart Cities?

Smart Cities use technologies that can detect changes in modern infrastructure and make changes to prevent accidents and inconvenience, and create a better environment. Smart Cities use the most up to date technologies such as sensors, AI, and analytics to name a few. The information can be collected from various sources and then be analyzed to improve the service and efficiency of a city. Data comes from many different sources which are managed by a city, including traffic, parking, waste, public safety, and the environment.

What Technology Do Smart Cities Use?

Smart Cities use all kinds of existing and emerging technology to monitor, analyze, and manage data to take efficient action in the city. It includes artificial intelligence, data analytics, CCTV, blockchain, big data, 5G, robotics, and much more.

What Can Smart Cities Do?

Basically, anything that needs some kind of monitoring in a city has the potential to be part of the IoT. For example, when there are vibrations on a building or an important infrastructure, it can give a warning of an earthquake. Monitoring of noise around places with noise restrictions and sending information to the local government is another example of what Smart Cities can do. The noise around places where there is the elderly and sick are such places that need monitoring. Traffic monitoring can be used to redirect traffic away from busy areas or places where there are bad weather conditions and accidents. Another good application is alerting the officials to empty the trash bins when filled with waste.

The Benefits

The benefits of smart technologies include more efficiency when using local government infrastructure as well as saving on time and money because of less labor and costs resulting from failures and damages to government infrastructure. Safer cities and a better environment resulting in better traffic management. Better surveillance of citizens in public gatherings may result in safer gatherings and less crime. Some people can participate in social activities with less hassle. This is particularly important for people with disabilities, the elderly, and other vulnerable groups who find it difficult to move around cities without assistance.

Smart Cities are the future but the technology takes time and the utopian city will depend on full participation from the population.