How Smart Cities Are Built: Brief Descriptions of Common Smart City Capabilities
By Reid Belew and Austin Harris
Because of the broad application of smart city theory and design, smart city infrastructure and features look different with each implementation. However, basic similarities exist, and some foundational principles can be found across the smart city spectrum. For the sake of simplifying the topic, we believe it appropriate to describe and explain common applications of smart cities to give an idea of how they affect everyday life.
Below are common elements of smart cities you’ll find across the globe, each given a short description.
Smartphone Applications
Some cities have highly developed smart city infrastructures that allow them to deliver all of their data into smartphone applications for citizens. The possibilities of apps like these are endless. In some versions, citizens are able to receive real-time traffic flow data, which informs them of roadwork, emergency vehicles en route that need to be avoided, accidents, commute time, current locations of public transit options, and much more. This application allows commuters and other drivers the ability to make real-time adjustments to their drive, potentially avoiding traffic or accidents.
Having all this data at citizens’ fingertips allows for a level of life-optimization that is unprecedented. A quick check of an app informs people if or how they need to alter their daily routine to avoid everyday headaches.
Optimized Public Transit
When cities have access to holistic data on public transit routes, timings, usage, and can cross it with demographic data, a clearer understanding of optimization appears. Those that need public transit the most can be better served by altering routes and route timings in their neighborhood. If needed, unused routes can be replaced with routes that expand to serve communities that have low rates of vehicle ownership.
Sometimes included in optimized public transit efforts are micro-mobility options — best known as pay-for-ride scooters and bicycles, as well as taxi options such as Uber and Lyft. Researchers seek to find ways of combining all possible transit options into a single app for citizens. Doing so would bring every travel possibility to citizens’ fingertips.
Smart Corridors
Smart corridors are designated sections of roads that are outfitted with sensors, cameras, and computers. Air and noise pollution, traffic patterns, traffic light synchronization, object tracking capabilities, and more can all be tracked in smart corridors. This data is streamed in real-time to dashboards that allow researchers to recognize patterns and observe the city. Often, insights received from this data are turned into public policy adjustments.
Smart corridors are a foundational piece of smart city infrastructures across the globe. In addition to being sources of enormous amounts of data, Smart Corridors are the first step to fostering vehicle and infrastructure “communication.” At scale, vehicles and infrastructure that communicate open new doors on the smart cities frontier.
Optimized Traffic Signals
Have you sat at a traffic light with no cross traffic, just waiting for it to turn? Smart city practitioners and engineers have the ability to make stalled traffic a thing of the past.
Another benefit of optimized traffic signals is a reduction of harmful vehicle emissions. A large portion of vehicle emissions come from repeated acceleration and deceleration — an obvious part of stopping at a traffic light. Additionally, cars that are stopped are left to idle, needlessly emitting gases without moving. Reducing how much our vehicles emit means great progress toward proactively reducing vehicles’ effects on climate change.
Smart Waste Collection
Most cities collect garbage on a pre-planned schedule, typically a weekly event on the same morning. Now, some cities around the world are testing “smart waste”, a system that would alert waste removal services when a citizen’s garbage needed to be picked up based on weight. The hope is that by only collecting garbage that needs to be picked up, vehicle emissions on routes where garbage isn’t picked up is greatly reduced.
Free Public Wifi
Sociologists and city planners call it the “digital divide” — an ongoing trend where some residents of cities have wifi at home and some don’t. We now know that access to wifi, in a world that is becoming predominantly online-based, is a determining factor of success. Wifi is needed to apply for jobs, find your way to a destination, study for a test, research, socialize, and an untold number of other tasks. Understanding this, cities can create wide-reaching, safe public wifi networks that mitigate this divide, and ultimately, outcomes.
Transparent Data
It’s easier than ever before to partake in civic engagement. A piece of that requires citizens to be informed. Many cities now offer a transparent, open view of police and accident reports, budgets, traffic metrics, and much more. Creating an online portal, citizens are able to log in at any time to understand a part of how their city is working, what it’s focusing on, and how their votes make tangible changes in their community.
Conclusion
Smart cities look different in each iteration. Cities must understand their own needs and the needs of its citizens to prioritize which solutions should be their priority. The above listing is an overview of the practical manifestations of smart city infrastructures, each one making urban life smarter, safer, or healthier in its own way.
The Center for Urban Informatics and Progress is a smart city research center at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. CUIP is committed to applied smart city research that betters the lives of citizens every day. For more on the work we’re doing and our mission, visit www.utc.edu/cuip.
