SMART CITIES
COVID-19 PANDEMIC HIGHLIGHTS THE NEED FOR
SMARTER AND MORE ADAPTABLE CITIES by Cedrik Neike, CEO, Siemens Smart Infrastructure Solutions must be found that are human-centric and resilient in the face of unforeseeable challenges. The coronavirus pandemic is a new experience for every one of us. It has changed life as we know it - at work, at home and in public interactions. As some countries start to ease restrictions on public life, how can we go back to the ‘normal’ while still maintaining social distancing and feeling safe? Mr Cedrik Neike How do we manage crowded public spaces like shopping malls, cinemas and restaurants? How do we optimise safety in our offices and factories? More importantly, how do we avoid shutting down entire cities and countries when the next pandemic hits?
Adaptability as the game changer Many would argue there are very few, if any, human-centric cities in the world. The reasons for this include air pollution, poor urban planning and traffic congestion, to name a few. However, despite the chaos of the past months, I am convinced there is a silver lining - it is in adaptability. It is now clearer than ever that the main characteristic of our future cities needs to be adaptability.
Our goal should be to create cities that balance environmental impact and economic growth. While natural resources continue to dwindle, data is an infinite resource at our disposal. Data is at the heart of digitalisation. Using it can help us achieve this goal by eliminating waste and saving energy and cost. We are already doing that in buildings - and getting better at it. But leveraging data to the advantage of people in cities is still at its infancy. In the future, we envision smart infrastructure becoming all-sensing and an ecosystem that knows you and adapts to your needs, thanks to data and digitalisation. This process is continuous - in the sense that we should create an infinity loop, that is, constant improvement based on the connection from the physical and virtual worlds. It is like children whose brains develop based on sensory experience - gaining knowledge through feedback from senses, for example, their learning not to touch something hot. The infinity loop for infrastructure connects input from all the sensors and experts to continuously improve the experience of those in the city and enhance the value of solutions for our customers.
Here is why I believe this is so:
All-sensing infrastructure
The pandemic has given our environment a much-needed breather, but it has not removed the biggest challenges we are up against. Our resources are still finite, and using them efficiently so we can live sustainably on this planet remains a top priority.
Sensors make all-sensing infrastructure possible. They are used almost everywhere today, from detecting earthquakes, to measuring your heart rate on a fitness tracker and to ensuring safety of workers on industrial sites. Data collected through these sensors is sent to a computer to be analysed and used intelligently.
Today, we have a golden opportunity to reassess how technology can be applied to tackle the challenges of climate change, urbanisation and population growth. The pandemic is creating a paradigm shift. We are on the cusp of a leap into a new era of digitalisation. While 99% of city infrastructure remains dumb today, technologically speaking, digitalisation can make it more flexible and quicker in responding to crises. Digitalisation allows us to create a digital, adaptable twin of a city in the virtual world. We can test and simulate a city’s resiliency to 24
events like natural disasters and pandemics. This helps us understand how adaptable it is to such events and simulate a number of responses to activate in the future.
THE SINGAPORE ENGINEER June 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has emphasised, even more, the need for adaptable cities.
