Smart cities — locations enabled, powered and integrated by digital technologies — have been on the agenda for decades and in science fiction for over a century. As a concept, they promised transformation. Shiny new spaces with connected systems, networked via the latest technology, using real-time information to improve the human experience of the built environment.
Many pilot programs have been run, but while some of the technologies now being espoused existed, they were often in early stages of development. Combined with a lack of build experience, unclear use cases and low government and citizen buy-in, not as much came from these initial projects as was hoped.
Now, with greater demand for climate action and circular design, mobile device proliferation, as well as new ways of working and increased data literacy as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the smart city goal has been reinstated. Massive infrastructure spend and advances in technology mean that the smart dream is one poised to become a reality.
Technology is changing the equation
Infrastructure technologies that seemed Jetsons-esque less than a decade ago are now commonplace on new building developments. Think: traffic congestion sensors linked to traffic lights, EV charging docs, retail dispatch services, and even parking bays that direct drivers to the nearest available parking spot.
But what really makes a smart city smart? Research by PwC Australia and the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) examining the smart city agenda in Australia has identified the technologies that the most successful smart precincts tend to include:
Data is transformative as a way to understand, optimise and personalise services and infrastructure. Smart services will create a greater willingness of citizens to share their data with government and business in return for highly personalised services that improve their experience, help drive operational productivity and support the creation of new, high-value services.
Governments have vast amounts of accumulated data (e.g demographic information about their citizens, records detailing public service usage). So too do private sector partners such as developers and transport operators. Mutual benefit and good governance drive greater data sharing. When shared and combined, these public and private data streams are essential to smart city design, as many of the foundational elements of smart precincts are achieved by joining up data to get valuable insights.*
Serving as the backbone hardware for smart precinct developments, emerging technologies such as IoT are driving many smart precinct initiatives, while also evolving in the way they are used. IoT creates unique, user-centric experiences while also improving efficiency and sustainability in communities. Because IoT overlaps physical sectors such as food, water, energy and transport, data interoperability is key to support data flow and data federation.
Wearable fitness devices promote positive health outcomes for citizens of a precinct. When paired with a smartphone or website to track performance, wearables have the added bonus of creating an ‘Internet of People’. The popularity of wearables means an increased density of sensors and therefore more potential data sources. They effectively increase ways to connect people to places.
Electrification will enhance local mobility and reduce emissions within precincts. Long-term planning should factor in electric vehicles (cars, bicycles, scooters, etc.), plus the need for vehicle charging inbuilt to street or building parking.
Digital twins provide real-time updates and come with a variety of functions and uses such as building information models (BIM) to support planning and construction, and to plan movement within places. Smart precincts should use digital twins that extend beyond just ‘straightforward’ data lakes (or similar) to incorporate strategic planning tools - ‘what-if’ engines that allow you to model different scenarios and give you valuable insights to help you make key decisions. For example, if a new station is being built in a precinct, what other investment into surrounding infrastructure, services and amenities needs to be made to ensure that the place that is being built meets the current and future wants and needs of the different citizen demographics in the precinct?
AI will drive greater personalisation of services in smart precincts, optimising systems, augmenting decision-making and driving even greater use of data. Importantly, this growing capability is subject to ongoing standardisation efforts, and requires community engagement around the ethical and responsible uses of AI.
Renewable energy sources will become increasingly important in Australia’s smart cities. So too will sustainability solutions such as vacuum waste systems, which could reduce emissions by 90 percent, and waste collection costs by 30 percent.1 In Western Sydney, for instance, this could save residents AU$62.8 million per year, and deliver indirect environmental and health benefits.**
Quantum computing has the potential — in the next ten to twenty years — to bring the next great productivity uplift in scale and speed of computing. For smart precincts, this means the possibility of delivering more cost- and energy-efficient solutions to problems such as large scale and granular machine learning and optimisation, currently ‘impossible’ for today’s classical computers.
The future is now
With these technologies and approaches, the next generation of smart projects are being enabled at scale, and there are an unprecedented number of smart cities and precincts in the pipeline.
Technology, however, is only one part of the equation. Many other pieces of the puzzle need to fall in place to enable a successful smart project. Part two in our smart city series outlines the success factors needed to operationalise a smart city.
