SMART CITY

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 What is a smart city?

The term “smart city“ was coined towards the end of the 20th century. It is rooted in
the implementation of user-friendly information and communication technologies developed
by major industries for urban spaces. Its meaning has since been expanded to relate to the
future of cities and their development. Smart cities are forward-looking, progressive and
resource-efficient while providing at the same time a high quality of life. They promote social
and technological innovations and link existing infrastructures. They incorporate new energy,
traffic and transport concepts that go easy on the environment. Their focus is on new forms of
governance and public participation. Intelligent decisions need to be taken at the strategic
level if cities want to become smart. It takes more than individual projects but careful
decisions on long-term implementations. Considering cities as entire systems can help them
achieve their ultimate goal of becoming smart. Smart cities forcefully tackle the current
global challenges, such as climate change and scarcity of resources. Their claim is also to
secure their economic competitiveness and quality of life for urban populations continuously
on the rise.

The concept of smart city, as it means different things to different people, changes
from city to city and country to country. It depends on the willingness to change and reform,
the level of growth, aspirations and resources of the residents of the city. A smart city,
therefore, would have a different meaning in India than it would have in America or Europe
or England, etc. Even in India it cannot be defined exactly by using a single yardstick.

A smart city is an urban area that uses different types of electronic data
collection sensors to supply information which is used to manage assets and resources
efficiently. This includes data collected from citizens, devices, and assets that is processed
and analyzed to monitor and manage traffic and transportation systems, power plants, water
supply networks, waste management, law enforcement, information systems, schools,
libraries, hospitals, and other community services

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1.2 Why do we need smart cities?

Urbanization is non ending phenomenon. Today, 54% of the people worldwide live in
a cities, a proportion that’s expected to reach 66% by 2050. Combined 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 that is taxing our cities resources.

Thankfully more than 190 countries have agreed upon goals for sustainable growth
smart city technology is paramount to success and meeting these goals.

2. CURRENT CHALLENGES

Urbanisation

More than half the world’s population already occupies urban spaces. Estimates
reckon that number to reach two thirds by 2050. This dramatic development is ultimately due
to the many opportunities people are awarded to design their own lives in cities. Rising
urbanisation, however, also means greater challenges: as cities grow people’s needs and
demands must be met in ways that go easy on the environment.

Scarce resources

Resources such as fossil energy, clean water and disposable land are limited as most
of us are aware of. We also know that cities consume the lion share of all energy produced
worldwide. Food, housing, mobility and waste removal require raw materials and energy. To
maintain a high standard of living for the long term cities must reduce their ecological
footprint and seek for alternatives to scarce fossil resources.

Climate change

Climate change is one of the most pressing issues we are currently faced with. CO2
emissions must be reduced in the decades to come while measures need to be taken to reign
in global warming, floods and extended heat waves. Cities are responsible for approximately
three quarters of greenhouse gases worldwide. Being major polluters they are also called
upon to provide solutions

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Globalisation

Worldwide networking of labour forces, institutions and information has its

repercussions on cities too. Economic and social structures are changing and urban politics
need to adapt their strategies to these new circumstances. It means positioning cities
internationally between cooperation and competition. The measures taken must not serve the
sole purpose of appearances but must focus on internal social, economic, spatial and
structural aspects as

3. Components

3.1 Smart Infrastructure

The global market for smart urban infrastructure in smart cities, include advanced
connected streets, smart parking, smart lighting, and other transportation
innovations. Here’s how they work:

 Smart Lighting: With smart lighting, city authorities can keep real-time tracking of
lighting to ensure optimized illumination and deliver demand-based lighting in
different zones. Smart lighting also helps in daylight harvesting and save energy by
dimming out sectors with no occupancies For e.g. parking lots can be dimmed during
work hours and when a car is entering, it will be detected and appropriate sectors can
be illuminated, while others can be kept at diffused setting.

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 Connected Streets: Connected and smart streets are capable of acquiring data and
delivering information and services to and from millions of devices, which includes
information about traffic, road blockages, road works, etc. This helps in efficient
management of resources and people to enhance public transportation and the urban
landscape.

 Connected Charging Stations: Smart infrastructure also includes implementing

charging stations in parking systems, city fleets, shopping malls and buildings,
airports, and bus stations across the city. Electronic vehicle (EV) charging platforms
can be integrated with IoT to streamline the operations of EV charging and addresses
the impact of the power grid.

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3.2 Smart Buildings & Properties

Smart buildings utilize different systems to ensure safety and security of buildings,
maintenance of assets and overall health of the surrounding.

 Safety & Security Systems: These include implementing remote monitoring,

biometrics, IP surveillance cameras, and wireless alarms to reduce unauthorized
access to buildings and chances of thefts. It also includes utilizing Perimeter Access
Control to stop access to restricted areas of the property and detect people in non-
authorized areas.

 Smart Garden & Sprinkler System: Smart sprinkler system synced with connected
technologies and cloud can be used to water plants with the assurance that plants get
the right amount of water. Smart garden devices can also perform tasks such as
measuring soil moisture and levels of fertilizer, helping the city authorities to save on
water bill (smart sprinkler devices use weather reports and automatically adjust their
schedule to stay off when it rains), and keep the grass from overgrowing in the
convenient way (robot lawnmowers).

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 Smart Heating & Ventilation: Smart heating and ventilation systems monitor
various parameters such as temperature, pressure, vibration, humidity of the buildings
and properties such as movie theatres, and historical monuments. Wireless sensor
network deployment is the key to ensuring appropriate heating and ventilation. These
sensors also collect data to optimize the HVAC systems, improving their efficiency
and performance in the buildings.

3.3 Smart Industrial Environment

Industrial environments present unique opportunities for developing applications associated

with the Internet of things and connected technologies which can be utilized in the following
areas:

 Forest Fire Detection: Helps in monitoring of combustion gases and preemptive fire
conditions to define alert zones.

 Air/Noise Pollution: Helps in controlling of CO2 emissions of factories, pollution

emitted by cars and toxic gases generated on farms.

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 Snow Level Monitoring: Helps in identifying the real-time condition of ski tracks,
allowing security corporations for avalanche prevention.

 Landslide and Avalanche Avoidance: Helps in monitoring of soil moisture, earth

density, as well as vibrations to identify dangerous patterns in land conditions.

 Earthquake Early Detection: Helps in detecting the chances of tremors by utilizing

distributed controls at specific places of tremors.

 Liquid Presence: Helps in detecting the presence of liquid in data centers, building
grounds, and warehouses to prevent breakdowns and corrosion.

 Radiation Levels: Helps in distributed measurement of radiation levels in nuclear

power stations surroundings to generate leakage alerts.

 Explosive and Hazardous Gases: Helps in detecting gas levels and leakages in
chemical factories, industrial environments, and inside mines.

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3.4 Smart City Services

IoT solution for smart city include services for public safety and emergencies. Below are the
key areas where IoT and connected technologies can help:

 Smart Kiosk: Smart kiosks play an important role in providing different city services
to the public such as Wi-Fi services, 24×7 IP surveillance cameras and analytics,
Digital signage for advertisement and public announcements. In some cases, free
video calling and free mobile charging station, as well as environmental sensor
integration can also be implemented. Smart kiosks also provide information about
restaurants, retail stores, and events in the immediate area. It can also provide
mapping for visitors and can sync with smart phones to give additional data as
needed.

 Monitoring of Risky Areas: Sensors (cameras, street lights) and actuators for real-
time monitoring can be implemented in risky areas or areas prone to accidents. Upon
detecting any crime, or mishap, these sensors can alert the citizens to avoid such areas
temporarily.

 Public Security: IoT sensors can be installed at public organizations and houses to
protect citizens and provide real-time information to fire and police departments when
it detects a theft.

 Fire/Explosion Management: Smart fire sensors can detect and automatically take
actions based on the level of severity, such as detecting false alarms, informing
firefighters and ambulance, blocking off nearby streets/buildings on the requirement,
helping people to evacuate, and coordinating rescue drones and robots.

 Automatic Health-Care Dispatch: Smart healthcare devices can be implemented at

public places to provide 24/7 health care for patients like dispensing medicines and

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drugs to patients. These devices can also be used to call an ambulance to pick up the
patients in cases of emergencies.

3.5 Smart Energy Management

Here’s how IoT solutions for smart cities can be implemented for smart energy management:

 Smart Grid: Smart grids are digitally monitored, self-healing energy systems that
deliver electricity or gas from generation sources. Smart grid solutions can be across
industrial, residential as well as in transmission and distribution projects. Various IoT
solutions like gateways can be used to achieve energy conservation at both the
transmission level and consumer level. For e.g., gateways can provide a broader view
of energy distribution patterns to utility companies with high connectivity and real-
time analytics. Also, it develops a Demand-Response mechanism for the utility
providers to optimize energy distribution based on the consumption patterns.

 Smart Meters: Smart meters can be used in residential and industrial metering
sectors for electricity and gas meters where there is a need to identify the real-time
information on energy usage. Consumers and utilities with smart meters can monitor
their energy consumption. Moreover, energy analytics, reports, and public dashboards
can be also accessed over the internet using mobile applications integrated with these
smart meters.

3.6 Smart Water Management

IoT and connected devices enable smart water management in the following ways:

 Potable Water Monitoring: Monitors the quality of tap water in the cities.

 Chemical Leakage: Identifies leakages and wastes of factories in rivers.

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 Swimming Pool Remote Measurement: Controls the swimming pool conditions

remotely.

 Pollution Levels in the Sea: Controls the occurrence of leakages and wastes in the
sea.

 Water Outflows: Detects of liquid presence outside tanks and pressure variations
along pipes.

 River Floods: Monitors water level variations in rivers, dams, and reservoirs.

3.7 Smart Waste Management

Smart solutions for tracking wastes help municipalities and waste service managers the
ability to optimize wastes, reduce operational costs, and better address the environmental
issues associated with an inefficient waste collection.

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Implementation of a smart city comes with enormous opportunities to transform the lives of
people and improve the overall city infrastructure and operations. Smart sensor networks,
Internet of Things (IoT) and connected technologies are the key solutions for smart city
implementation.

4. Framework

4.1 Technology framework

Several concepts of the Smart city rely heavily on the use of technology; a technological
Smart City is not just one concept but there are different combinations of technological
infrastructure that build a concept of smart city.

 Digital city: it combines service oriented infrastructure, innovation services and

communication infrastructure; Yovanof, G. S. & Hazapis, G. N. define a digital city
"a connected community that combines broadband communications infrastructure; a
flexible, service-oriented computing infrastructure based on open industry standards;
and, innovative services to meet the needs of governments and their employees,
citizens and businesses".
The main purpose is to create an environment in which citizens are interconnected and
easily share information anywhere in the city.

 Virtual city: In these kinds of cities functions are implemented in a cyberspace; it

includes the notion of hybrid city, which consists of a reality with real citizens and
entities and a parallel virtual city of real entities and people. Having a smart city that
is virtual means that in some cities it is possible the coexistence between these two
reality, however the issue of physical distance and location is still not easy to manage.
The vision of the world without distance still remains unmet in many ways. In
practice this idea is hold up through physical IT infrastructure of cables, data centers,
and exchanges.
 Information city: It collects local information and delivered them to the public
portal; In that city, many inhabitants are able to live and even work on the Internet

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because they could obtain every information through IT infrastructures, thanks to the
sharing information method among citizens themselves. Using this approach, an
information city could be an urban centre both economically and socially speaking;
the most important thing is the linkage among civic services, people interactions and
government institutions.
 Intelligent city: it involves function as research or technological innovation to
support learning and innovation procedure. The notion emerges in a social context in
which knowledge, learning process and creativity have great importance and the
human capital is considered the most precious resource within this type of
technological city. In particular one of the most significant feature of an intelligent
city is that every infrastructure is up to date, that means have the latest technology in
telecommunications, electronic and mechanical technology. According to Komninos
and Sefertzi, the attempt to build an "intelligent" Smart City is more a radical
innovation rather than an incremental innovation owing to a big quantity of efforts to
use IT trying to transform the daily life.
 Ubiquitous city (U-city): It creates an environment that connect citizens to any
services through any device. According to Anthopoulos, L., & Fitsilis, P., U-city is a
further extension of digital city concept because of the facility in terms of
accessibility to every infrastructure. This makes easier to the citizen the use of any
available devices to interconnect them. Its goal is to create a city where any citizen
can get any services anywhere and anytime through any kind of devices. It is
important to highlights that the ubiquitous city is different from the above virtual
city: while the virtual city creates another space by visualizing the real urban
elements within the virtual space, U-city is given by the computer chips inserted to
those urban elements.
 Cognitive Smart City: Cognitive smart city expands the concept of the smart city by
referring to the convergence of the emerging Internet of Things (IoT) and smart city
technologies, their generated big data, and artificial intelligence techniques.
Continuous learning through human interactions and consequently performing a
dynamic and flexible behavior and actions based on the dynamic environment of the
city are the core components of such framework.

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4.2 Human framework

Human infrastructure (i.e., creative occupations and workforce, knowledge networks,

voluntary organisations) is a crucial axis for city development.

 Creative city: creativity is recognized as a key driver to smart city and it represents also
a version of it. Social infrastructures, like for instance intellectual and social capital are
indispensable factors to build a city that is smart according to the human framework.
These infrastructures concern people and their relationship. Smart City benefits from
social capital and it could be possible and easier to create a Smart city concept if there are
mix of education and training, culture and arts, business and commerce as Bartlett, L.
said.
 Learning city: according to Moser, M. A., learning city is involved in building skilled
workforce. This type of city in the human context improves the competitiveness in the
global knowledge economy and Campbell established a typology of cities that are
learning to be smart: individually proactive city, city cluster, one-to-one link between
cities, and city network. That lead a city to learn how it should be possible and realistic to
be smart through learning process followed by city workforce.
 Humane city: It exploits human potential, in particular the knowledge workforce.
Following this approach, it is possible focus on education and builds a center of higher
education, which is the city, obtaining better-educated individuals. According to Glaeser,
E. L., & Berry, C. R, this view moves a smart city concept in a city full of skilled
workforces; the same reasoning could be make for those high tech knowledge-sensitive
industries which want to migrate in a so dynamic and proactive community. As a
consequence of the above movement, the difference between Smart City and not are
getting wider; Smart places are getting smarter while other places getting less smart
because such places act as a magnet for creative people and workers (Malanga, S. 2004).
 Knowledge city: It is related to knowledge economy and innovation process; this type of
Smart City is very similar to a learning city, the only difference refers to “a knowledge
city is heavily related to knowledge economy, and its distinction is stress on innovation”
(Dirks, S., Gurdgiev, C., & Keeling, M.).
The concept of knowledge city is linked with similar evolving concepts of Smart City
such as intelligent city and educating city. The most important feature of this city is

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the fundamental concept of knowledge-based urban development, which has become

an important and widespread mechanism for the development of knowledge cities.

4.3 Institutional framework

According to Moser, M. A., since 1990s the Smart Communities movement took shape as a
strategy to broaden the base of users involved in IT. Members of these Communities are
people that share their interest and work in a partnership with government and other
institutional organizations to push the use of IT to improve the quality of daily life as a
consequence of different worsening in daily actions. Eger, J. M. said that a smart community
makes a conscious and agreed-upon decision to deploy technology as a catalyst to solving its
social and business needs. It is very important to understand that this use of IT and the
consequent improvement could be more demanding without the institutional help; indeed
institutional involvement is essential to the success of smart community initiatives. Again
Moser, M. A. explained that "building and planning a smart community seeks for smart
growth"; a smart growth is essential what the partnership between citizen and institutional
organizations try to do that is a reaction to worsening trends in daily things, like for instance
traffic congestion, school overcrowding and air pollution. However it is important noticed
that technological propagation is not an end in itself, but only a means to reinventing cities
for a new economy and society. To sum up, it could possible to assert that any Smart City
initiatives necessitate the governance support for their success.

The importance of these three different dimensions consist that only a link, correlation among
them make possible a development of a real concept of Smart City. According to the
definition of Smart City given by Caragliu, A., Del Bo, C., & Nijkamp, P. a city is smart
when investments in human/social capital and IT infrastructure fuel sustainable growth and
enhance quality of life, through participatory governance.

4.4 Energy framework

Smart cities use data and technology to create efficiencies, improve sustainability, create
economic development, and enhance quality of life factors for people living and working in
the city. It also means that the city has a smarter energy infrastructure. A more formal
definition is this: “… An urban area that has securely integrated technology across the
information . . . and Internet of Things (IoT) sectors to better manage a city’s assets.

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A smart city is powered by “smart connections” for various items such as street
lighting, smart buildings, distributed energy resources (DER), data analytics, and smart
transportation. Amongst these things, energy is paramount; this is why utility companies play
a key role in smart cities. Electric companies, working partnership with city officials,
technology companies and a number of other institutions, are among the major players that
helped accelerate the growth of America's smart cities.

4.5 Data Management framework

Smart city employs a combination of data collection, processing, and disseminating

technologies in conjunction with networking and computing technologies and data security
and privacy measures encouraging application innovation to promote the overall quality of
life for its citizens and covering dimensions that include: utilities, health, transportation, and
entertainment and government services.

5. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

Advantages

 Reducing the cost (in terms of dollars, time, and energy), offers 2 additional beneficial
spin offs individuals with more time and money have more time and money to spend
on their individual pursuits. More freedom for personal choice of time and money
offer an improved quality of life. At the same time, reduced time and money also spur
economic growth, with businesses requiring fewer resources to be financially
successful

 Smart cities also offer the members of the community more venues to participate in
their community. By providing connections, smart cities allow people to provide input
on the direction of their community; learn about goods, services, or volunteer
activities; and connect to other people with similar interests, all on their own time and
in manners that encourage connection.

 The primary benefits of smart cities, therefore, is to create a more connected

community.

Disadvantages

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 Cost of living
 Privacy
 Government control
 Hacking
 Electrical power cut
 Internet goes down
 Driving people outside of the city
 Creates specific demographics

6. Objectives
 Significantly reducing emissions (CO2, green house gases....)
 Long term objective; a zero carbon city, zero emission buildings as standard
 Significantly reducing energy consumption. Long term objective; reaching close to
zero energy standards in new and existing buildings. Significantly increasing the use
of renewable sources of energy (e.g. in public buildings)
 Raising awareness in the wider public about responsible use of resources (energy,
water)
 Promoting multi-model transport systems by improving the public transport network,
enhancing networking between individual transport carriers, and significantly
reducing individual motorized transport

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7. CASE STUDY

SMART WASTE MANAGEMENT IN THE UAE | "DUBAI MUNICIPALITY

PLACES 100 SMART WASTE CONTAINERS ON SHEIKH ZAYED ROAD"

Dubai, the largest and most populous city in the United Arab Emirates, is one of the latest
municipalities to adopt Bigbelly's world leading smart waste and recycling management
solution.

With stations deployed in the areas surrounding the main corridor of Sheikh Zayed Road, the
Bigbelly system offers a completely contained design to remove visible waste, sustainable
technology that reduces the Dubai's environmental footprint, and recycling stream for easy
waste separation on-the-go.

The Waste Management Department of Dubai Municipality has distributed 100

environmentally-friendly smart containers for waste storage along both sides of Sheikh Zayed
Road from Dubai World Trade Center roundabout to the first Interchange linking the bridge
on Safa Street and Financial Center Street as a first phase to encourage waste separation and
increase the efficiency of recycling programs in the area. The move is part of Dubai
Municipality's keenness to adopt best practices to enhance the quality of sustainable life in
Dubai.

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Eng. Abdulmajeed Saifaie, Director of Waste Management Department and Head of the
Sustainable Waste Management Awareness Team at Dubai Municipality, said that the
distribution of new waste storage containers comes in line with the most successful
international standards in the field of improving public cleanliness in the emirate.

"The smart containers are designed to the highest and the best quality standards approved in
the field. They are solar powered and equipped with electronic devices and high-precision
sensors to monitor and measure the level of waste. When the container is full it reports by
sending an instant signal to the control center to carry out the unloading when needed. The
innovative containers also contain two separate openings, one for general waste and the other
for recyclable materials such as glass, packaging, plastic, paper etc.," he said.

Saifaie said the distribution of smart containers comes in support of Dubai government's plan
to transform the emirate into the world's first smart city and to complete the modernization
and development of all waste storage systems in Dubai in line with state-of-the-art
technology solutions and the finest clean technologies.

On the expected positive results, he explained that the use of these containers has several
environmental benefits, including reducing carbon footprint and improving environmental
impact.

"It helps to reduce harmful carbon emissions and rationalize the consumption of electric
power as the containers depend on 100% on solar energy for their operation. [The smart
system leads to] improving the operational efficiency of waste collection, storage and
transport services by 80%, enhancing the optimal use of resources and efficiency of field
performance in various areas of the Emirate of Dubai," said Saifaie.

As for the technical specifications and advantages of these containers, he said that they have
been equipped with intelligent techniques for the authorities to monitor the geographical
distribution, storage and operation of waste storage means in the Emirate of Dubai.

Saifaie pointed out that the automatic waste compression feature available in the container
will increase the capacity of the container, which is about eight times greater than the regular
containers distributed in the city with a capacity of 85 liters, thus reducing the number of
reports and complaints about the accumulation of waste in the public streets.

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"In addition to that the sealed design of the container prevents insects and rodents attracted to
it, and thus it mitigates the negative impacts on health and environment and the general
aesthetic appearance of the place. The outer structure of the container enables it to be used for
spreading awareness and education messages directed to all segments and groups of the
society," he said

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8. 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.

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