Smart city: what are smart cities?
19. 8. 2020
When people hear the term “smart city”, many of you may picture futuristic scenes from science fiction films, full of flying vehicles, unusually shaped buildings and infrastructure interconnected by technologies the world does not yet know. In practice, however, things are much simpler and surprisingly achievable. What are smart cities or towns, and how can this label be earned?
There is no official definition of the term “smart city” yet, but in general, an area where digital, information and communication technologies contribute to improving quality of life is considered a smart city. This may involve new and renewable energy sources, ways to reduce energy consumption, environmentally friendly technological solutions, but also traffic optimisation or sharing data and networks for public purposes. The “smartness” of a city can show up in many areas – the economy, technology, transport, administration and communication, or even education. What smart cities should also have in common is the general availability of services and other elements to all residents, including seniors, parents at home, self-employed people or, for example, people with disabilities. Digitalisation is one of the most important components.
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Greater efficiency and accessibility
The use of new technologies optimises public and social services and ensures their greater efficiency and accessibility. It helps to create a more open and skilled society and, above all, to improve quality of life. Local politicians and officials should aim to make it easier for the general public to interact with government and to improve and simplify administrative procedures. Support and develop electronic government services so that people can communicate and handle their affairs quickly, flexibly and efficiently.
Digitalisation at the level of municipalities and towns cannot achieve full progress without digitalisation at the level of the state, yet there are still many possibilities for improvement in this area too. These may include digital notice boards, a sophisticated information system for residents in which the local public announcement system is replaced by mailing lists or automatic SMS messages, or better options for remote communication and handling all kinds of matters that do not necessarily require a citizen to be physically present at the institution. Since access to the internet was defined as one of the fundamental rights, municipalities and towns have also increased their activities in the area of public internet access, including free access. Many municipalities offer free public hotspots; this activity is supported, for example, by the European Commission’s initiative WiFi4EU. A smart city, however, does not mean equipping street furniture with overpriced “WiFi” benches. It means making electronic services and connections to them available in places where you would expect them: at offices, in hospitals and polyclinics, in places of recreation and relaxation.
As residents’ mobility grows, transport also becomes a much-discussed aspect of smart cities. Ideally, transport should be simple and fast, and place as little burden as possible on visitors and residents alike, as well as on the environment. Smart cities therefore involve building cycle paths, designing the safest possible transport systems, achieving even better integration with the infrastructure of information and communication technologies and open data, and also promoting and improving options for travelling by public transport and other alternatives. Even when building transport systems, an internet connection is indispensable, as it can enable smart and rapid sharing of traffic information, intelligent traffic management, parking, traffic light control, communication between units of the Integrated Rescue System (IZS), and, for example, the relevant administration as well.
The USA and the Scandinavian countries take the lead
The cradle of smart city concepts was the United States and some Scandinavian countries, but elements of smart cities can also be found here in the Czech Republic. In some places in Ostrava, for example, there are so-called smart stops with digital information displays, and public transport vehicles (as in many other Czech towns and municipalities) have contactless payment terminals installed. In Zlín, a two-way online communication system was implemented between the traffic light controller and public transport vehicles, which has demonstrably made urban transport more efficient. For Prague, the material called the Smart Prague Concept until 2030 was prepared in 2017 by Deloitte Czech Republic. The concept covers several areas, from mobility through smart buildings to a zero-waste city and the data area, and the agenda of the concept is coordinated by the Prague Institute of Planning and Development.
Efforts to build smart elements in towns do not always lead to a positive result. Examples include projects of smart benches with solar panels, USB ports and a Wi-Fi signal in several places in Prague – some of the benches do not work and are not used very efficiently. Smart lamps, which were meant to regulate light intensity, sense traffic or weather and air pollution, and offer other functions, have also faced certain problems. Apart from the human factor in the form of less disciplined individuals who tend to destroy these elements, bureaucracy or a lack of clarity in various announced competitions, projects and tenders is often an obstacle to building truly smart cities, and expensive and inefficient solutions are frequently adopted.
Despite all the complications, the smart city concept is certainly not unfeasible; the idea is genuinely good, and if the right people take it up, it will benefit everyone.
Comment by Jakub Rejzek, candidate for the Central Bohemian Regional Council.
Which technologies or solutions do you think will be key for smart cities in the coming years?
Smart Cities is a very broad term into which every visionary can pack their wishes. When the term “smart city” began to appear, it was associated with great enthusiasm about everything that would become possible thanks to the smart concept. From the automatic driving of cars to “smart” charging benches with a WiFi connection, and rubbish bins that call the collection service themselves. In reality, Smart solutions are above all a name for the direction of natural development. We need to learn to use the wide possibilities that today’s advanced electronics and digitalisation bring. And above all, they should serve us. They will serve us if Smart solutions save time and money and bring the necessary user comfort.
Technology must serve people, never the other way round. Technically, it is no longer a problem for towns or municipalities to build a parking system that shows free parking spaces in a monitored location in real time. We commonly pay for parking by mobile phone in Prague, for example, but the app cannot show parking occupancy directly on the phone. When we drive over to Kolín, the Prague app is useless to us; we need the Kolín one. That is not a very smart solution, is it? How about a single app for the whole region, with information on traffic and parking capacities? Wouldn’t that be smarter?
Communicating with the state? No problem
Likewise, it is no problem to handle most communication with the state and municipalities via a mobile app. When banks can verify the identity of an account holder and let them transfer huge sums of money from the street, why couldn’t I report a lost identity document and request a replacement by phone? Comfort and savings. That is the point. Infrastructure. Monitoring traffic on approach roads and evaluating parking occupancy has long been solved. We can even automatically evaluate traffic density on approach roads, connect and analyse traffic data; we have a wide range of options available. To use all of this, we need a much denser infrastructure of optical fibre cables. 5G networks will greatly help the development of smart concepts, but without densifying the fibre network we will not be able to achieve high throughput on wireless 5G solutions.
Cities and municipalities are afraid to pursue the policy that would bring them to full readiness for smart solutions. Investments by municipalities must always be accompanied by studies showing where ducts for blowing in optical fibre should be prepared. Projects are not coordinated with electronic communications providers, and towns are not yet looking far enough into the smart future. The approach of some municipalities often reminds me of developers of residential projects. Even in properties worth millions, the parking bays in their garages lack sockets suitable for charging electric vehicles. Retrofitting is expensive, laborious and complicated. What, then, is the motivation to use an electric car in big cities if a resident of the building cannot charge it? Without a comprehensive approach based on common sense, we will go on talking about smart cities for a long time. The political leadership of regions, cities and municipalities must be far more courageous and think further ahead than the end of the electoral term.
Continue reading with the article How to connect a small municipality far from fibre routes.
Updated 15 March 2024
