SMART CITIES:
A ROADMAP FOR THE FUTURE
INTRODUCTION
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round the world, governments are embracing the smart cities revolution — leveraging technology to improve public services and the lives of the people who rely on them. To move to the next generation of smart cities technology, government officials must look beyond flashy one-off use cases and revisit the fundamental issues they confront in other areas of governance, including doing more with less and maximizing the use of their existing assets. This paper explores the current state of smart cities, details the potential of citywide approaches and provides a roadmap to help leaders take the next steps.
WHERE SMART CITIES STAND TODAY More than 1,000 smart cities projects are under way worldwide, according to Deloitte.1 Across the globe, governments planned to invest $80 billion in smart cities technology in 2018, according to research by IDC.2 In large part, that’s because developing a roadmap toward smarter cities is no longer an option for government leaders. It’s an imperative. A range of macro trends are driving governments toward smart cities technologies, including: PUBLIC DEMAND — AND EXPECTATIONS. It’s often said that citizens now expect a similar user experience from their governments as they get from Amazon. At the same time, more than half of the world’s people now live in urban areas, and another three million people are moving into cities every week — placing ever-greater demands on infrastructure and requiring governments to maximize existing resources.3 ECONOMIC GROWTH. Just as the world’s population is moving to cities, so are the engines of economic growth. The top 600 cities in the world will generate up to 65 percent of global GDP through 2025, according to McKinsey.4 And as they compete for skilled workers, global companies are prioritizing infrastructure and quality-of-life issues as they decide where to locate or grow, as seen by Amazon’s lengthy — and unusually public — HQ2 competition.
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DECAYING INFRASTRUCTURE. Governments worldwide are confronting new challenges around aging infrastructure, some dating back to the first industrial revolution. With global infrastructure needs exceeding $94 trillion over the next two decades, according to the Global Infrastructure Hub, it’s no surprise that many are falling behind.5 The U.S. received an overall D+ grade on the state of its infrastructure in 2017 from the American Society of Civil Engineers, and many state and local governments are faring little better when it comes to managing their own infrastructure and assets.6 FLAT OR DECLINING BUDGETS. Governments have grown accustomed to doing more with less for decades, and smart cities technologies are providing an important new way of doing just that. Smart cities technologies could save governments as much as $4.95 billion a year globally by 2022, according to ABI research7 — by cutting energy consumption, improving efficiency, and reducing maintenance and repair costs.
SUCCESSFUL FIRST STEPS Many of today’s smart cities efforts are focused around specific use cases, such as street lighting, real-time information about public transit, and, as is the case in New York City, providing public Wi-Fi and access to city services through a network of more than 7,500 internet-connected kiosks. Many of these high-visibility efforts have reduced costs and created tangible
benefits for citizens. For example, energy-efficient networked street lighting can pay for itself in six years, according to IDC, and smart parking solutions directing drivers to available parking spaces are already reducing congestion in central cities. At the same time, “the broad majority of governments are just beginning the journey,” says Matt Tredinnick, global director of marketing at Pitney Bowes. And many leaders are finding that moving from initial smart cities experiments to the next level of connected infrastructure can be challenging.
STUMBLING BLOCKS “For all their promise, a lot of smart cities projects have not delivered,” says Ian Slesser, Pitney Bowes’ global director for asset management. A fundamental issue, he says, is that many initial smart cities efforts were launched as demonstration projects without a clear sense of the problems they were intended to solve. Other challenges facing government leaders as they attempt to scale smart cities initiatives across multiple departments and functions include:
SUSTAINABLE SYDNEY, DRIVEN BY DATA Sydney, Australia, has set a collective vision for what it calls “a green, global and connected Sydney” that will be among the world’s most livable cities. One way leaders plan on meeting their ambitious 2030 goals is to consolidate information about all of the city’s assets and infrastructure. The city previously had more than 60 separate sources of data, each maintained by its respective department. Inventorying all infrastructure in a single, geotagged solution simplified processes for city staff, as well as contractors and service delivery teams given access to the data. These contractors also upload before-and-after photos of their work using their mobile phones, giving city staff a better way of assessing performance. To improve long-term planning, city officials integrated the consolidated inventory system with its financial applications. In addition, connections between the inventory system and customer service systems enable city staff to immediately answer questions about ongoing work or service requests, demonstrating to citizens that work toward the goal of a connected Sydney is proceeding apace.8
LACK OF CITYWIDE COORDINATION. Initial projects often were created in isolation and may not be compatible with the systems and strategies of other departments. “Initial projects were point solutions, so they weren’t designed to scale beyond the initial use case,” Slesser says. FAILURE TO BUILD ON PREVIOUS SUCCESSES. As our expectations of what makes a city smart continue to evolve, some early breakthroughs are becoming dated. For example, cities that invested heavily in building transit technology around smart fare cards may not have an easy pathway to upgrade systems to the “tap-and-go” smartphone-powered solutions that are considered cutting edge today. LACK OF UNDERSTANDING OF EXISTING INFRASTRUCTURE. Smart cities solutions rely on a full understanding of the assets they’re intended to manage. In some cases, cities looking to move to next-generation solutions don’t have a full picture of all their assets or the condition of existing infrastructure.
“Cities really do need to know where their assets are — and understand the condition they’re in at that moment — so they can optimize repairs, maintenance or improvements,” Tredinnick says. NOT UNDERSTANDING THE IMPORTANCE OF DATA. Too often initial smart cities efforts focused on sensors and the Internet of Things (IoT), not how to use the data these tools generate to drive analytics-informed decision-making. Still, governments of all sizes and at all stages of smart cities evolution can take concrete steps to move forward. “While initial projects delivered a proof of concept,” Slesser says, “by making it more of a science, they can deliver the real benefit.”
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THE VISION OF TOMORROW’S SMART CITIES Next-generation smart cities are built around data — and data-informed decision-making. But that data isn’t just from intelligent infrastructure. To make actionable decisions, smart cities infrastructure must combine data from a range of city systems such as historical records and financial systems, as well as external sources such as real-time weather data. This combination, says Tredinnick, allows government leaders to “protect and predict rather than just manage.” In order to do this, the data needs are significant — IDC estimates that New York City could ultimately manage and collect data from as many as three million connected devices, while a city of 100,000 would still have to contend with 25,000 or more assets.9 But the opportunities also are vast. Shanghai, for example, has created a “big data exchange” in which all the data collected from its own smart infrastructure and other sources is packaged and sold on an electronic exchange, which allows private companies to develop their own cost-saving solutions that benefit citizens.10 When real-time and historical data is integrated in these ways, smart cities solutions become predictive, not reactive, and allow governments to find new solutions in longstanding areas, such as: PUBLIC SAFETY. Today’s smart cities technologies, including closed-circuit television (CCTV) and
gunshot monitors, alert law enforcement to problems. When combined with historical crime records, mapping solutions and census data, they can help public safety officials identify patterns and respond to potential problems before people and property are endangered. SMART LIGHTING is already helping cities reduce costs, but when connected lighting is linked to weather data or even integrated with IoT lighting sensors, it can respond to changing conditions in real time, improving safety. CONNECTED TRASH CANS can signal when they are full, but when married with artificial intelligence solutions, they could reduce overall collection costs by generating real-time routes that only service the customers who need service on specific days. SMART TRANSIT SYSTEMS, which offer real-time displays that let people know when the next bus or train will arrive, could ultimately adjust commuting schedules based on data about ridership and traffic conditions. Reducing the “buffer time” in which riders wait for buses and trains could provide time savings that add up to more than $60 billion a year in efficiencies, according to McKinsey.11 MONITORING DRAINAGE on roadways can direct maintenance crews to flooded areas, but these systems also could be connected to IoT smart sensors
LONDON’S LOCATION-BASED ENFORCEMENT Location, location, location has always been the catchphrase for real estate. In London, a location-based approach to enforcement also is helping put illegal landlords out of business. City officials flew an aircraft equipped with thermal sensors and 3-D imaging equipment to identify what are commonly referred to as “beds in sheds” — property owners who illegally rent out makeshift, substandard housing to immigrants and low-income individuals. City officials identified 6,000 illegal dwellings in just one London borough, 10 times more than they had expected to find.12
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or weather forecasts to direct crews in advance of heavy rains. They could also connect to smart traffic signs that identify alternate routes and intelligent street lighting to provide drivers with better visibility — and a subliminal warning to stay alert. “It’s that confluence that allows a more tuned approach,” says Slesser.
IN DERBYSHIRE, DOING MORE WITH LESS
SMART UTILITY METERS can detect water leaks and excessive energy usage, resulting in significant savings to both citizens and government — as much as $69 billion per year globally, according to McKinsey.13
In just five years, the Derbyshire County Council in the United Kingdom saw its highway maintenance budget fall by more than half. But an equally daunting challenge was that managers had trouble knowing what work was being done by its maintenance crews.
MAINTENANCE AND COMPLIANCE in more mundane areas of inventory and asset management also can provide significant cost-saving opportunities. For example, cross-referencing an inventory of assets with data about when equipment was purchased and the length of warranties can help governments avoid paying for covered repairs of assets such as computers, vehicles or mobile phones.
“We would get potholes or other defects on the roads, and we’d send the crews out to repair them,” says Angela Gilthero, the department’s assistant director of resources and improvement. “We had a complicated and inconsistent paper system, which meant we couldn’t easily identify which defects the crews were repairing each day.”
Together, efficiencies from these next-generation smart cities capabilities could ultimately save cities as much as $1.6 trillion per year, according to McKinsey.14 They also could help cities capture an additional $20 trillion in economic benefits through 2026, according to ABI research.15
As part of a broader reorganization, the county inventoried and geocoded all of its infrastructure, allowing crews to prioritize needed work. The county’s repair backlog fell by 62 percent in one year, and by integrating weather data, crews have become more proactive about monitoring and ensuring storm drains are working and clear ahead of flooding. “Because we’ve got all the data and the intelligence in one place, the schedule can be more easily prioritized to make sure we’re doing the most urgent jobs first and arranging the most efficient route for the workforce,” Gilthero says.16
THE COUNTY’S REPAIR BACKLOG FELL BY IN ONE YEAR, AND BY INTEGRATING WEATHER DATA, CREWS HAVE BECOME MORE PROACTIVE ABOUT MONITORING AND ENSURING STORM DRAINS ARE WORKING AND CLEAR AHEAD OF FLOODING.
62%
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MAKING THE VISION A REALITY Regardless of where they are in the smart cities journey, government leaders can take steps to prepare for the next generation of smart cities technology. Among the strategies:
START SMALL, BUT SMART. Even initial smart cities efforts should address real-world needs. It’s also vital to ensure projects are sustainable over time and have the potential to scale to larger solutions. For example, incorporating weather data into solutions governing transportation can provide a foundation for future smart infrastructure projects which benefit from similar integration, such as street lights and public safety. “Get a level of success, move on and move quickly,” says Tredinnick.
INVENTORY INFRASTRUCTURE. This is a critical part of a comprehensive asset management practice, but a static inventory of assets is not enough. The goal is to understand “what you’ve got, the condition it’s in and how to maintain it,” says Slesser. Doing so requires bringing in the bigger picture — additional data sets that help put each piece of infrastructure into a broader context. For instance, data on traffic patterns and usage can help agencies prioritize the greatest highway maintenance needs and understand the biggest benefits from upgrades. “That helps you make the right decision with all the data, and not just a point decision about one asset,” Slesser says.
MAP AND GEOTAG ALL ASSETS AND INFRASTRUCTURE. As with inventorying, this shouldn’t be a standalone activity, but part of a broader asset management program which can both empower and be empowered by data-informed smart cities strategies. For example, in Derbyshire, UK, geocoding assets and road projects allow maintenance staff to pinpoint the exact location of problems — and identify planned projects which are close to each other.
FOCUS ON DATA INFRASTRUCTURE. Consider developing strategies to aggregate and take advantage of data citywide before scaling projects. This requires
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technology investments in the network backbone and communications infrastructure — including mobile and wired access points — and smart data management platforms that can aggregate all sources of data and present them in ways that help government leaders make informed decisions.
CREATING A SMART INFRASTRUCTURE IS AS MUCH A CULTURAL CHALLENGE AS A TECHNOLOGY ONE.
CONSIDER STAFFING. Initial projects can be overseen by one person, but as they scale agencies will need to develop teams to oversee deployment and decisionmaking. This specialist team can then be used across business units to help coordinate one big solution.
LEVERAGE FUNDING SOURCES. National governments worldwide are offering tax incentives for energyefficient buildings and other infrastructure and transit improvements. Another, nongovernmental option: partnering with third-party infrastructure providers, such as nonpublic utilities and telecoms. This is often referred to as a public-private partnership (P3).
CREATE A DECISION-MAKING CULTURE. Creating a smart infrastructure is as much a cultural challenge as a technology one. Decision-makers at all levels of government must develop an understanding of what data sets — internal and external — are needed to drive intelligent decisions.
ANTICIPATE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SYSTEMS, which will make smart cities systems even smarter. Over time, growing amounts of data and rapidly evolving artificial intelligence (AI) solutions will provide cities with a broad range of benefits. Prepare to develop rules and roadmaps that will allow AI systems to automatically respond when specific events occur and continue to refine operations based on historical and real-time data.
IN LONDON, INVENTORYING ASSETS IS CHILD’S PLAY When one of the oldest and largest affordable housing providers in London began inventorying its assets, leaders realized one of their main goals was child’s play — in a very literal sense. To ensure the safety of residents and their children, inspectors and maintenance teams use mobile devices to track the condition of play areas and equipment, says Tom Broad, head of environmental services for the Peabody Group. This includes identifying needed repairs and even assessing the health of nearby trees. “For trees, we record one set of information, from trunk condition to the safety of the branches,” Broad explains. This data-driven approach improved the speed and accuracy of repairs and helped the Peabody Group provide accurate service charge estimates for nearly $9 million worth of work annually, according to Broad.17
CONCLUSION The smart cities of tomorrow are well within reach today, but government leaders should keep in mind the importance of focusing on the basics. As Paul Moon, infrastructure and technology manager for the UK’s Dorset County Council, puts it, “We need to know exactly what we have, what condition it’s in, what needs to be done to it and where we need to spend money.”18 Many of the benefits of intelligent infrastructure can be measured in dollars and cents — cost savings and efficiencies, economic growth and tax revenues from growing populations. But government leaders also should consider how more intelligent and adaptable cities can also do something else: exhibit personality. When citizens see their surroundings adapt to their needs and get immediate answers to their questions, they can feel more connected to their communities. In Derbyshire, for example, the county’s infrastructure management system automatically tracks citizen reports of potholes and other road issues and alerts them when repairs are completed. “Citizens want to be part of something that’s vibrant and alive, and feel like the city’s looking after them,” says Slesser. “A smart city has a personality. A smart city gives them peace of mind, helping them make smarter decisions. Give your city a personality and make it effective.”
To learn more: https://www.pitneybowes.com/us/ software/smart-cities-asset-management
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This piece was developed and written by the Governing Content Studio, with information and input from Pitney Bowes. IMAGES PROVIDED BY SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
1.
https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/cn/Documents/public-sector/deloitte-cn-ps-super-smart-city-en-180629.pdf
2.
https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=US43731318
3.
https://www.iom.int/sites/default/files/country/docs/syria/IOM-World-Migration-Report-2015-Overview.pdf
4.
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/the-internet-of-things-the-value-of-digitizing-the-physical-world
5.
https://outlook.gihub.org/
6.
https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/making-the-grade/
7.
https://www.smartcitiesworld.net/news/could-smart-cities-save-governments-people-and-companies-5trillion-annually-2375
8.
https://www.pitneybowes.com/us/location-intelligence/case-studies/city-of-sydney.html
9.
https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=US43731318
10.
https://www.globeseries.com/blog/2017/12/06/path-smart-cities-lessons-china/
11.
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/the-internet-of-things-the-value-of-digitizing-the-physical-world
12.
Ibid.
13.
https://www.pitneybowes.com/us/location-intelligence/case-studies/location-based-crime-busting.html
14.
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/the-internet-of-things-the-value-of-digitizing-the-physical-world
15.
https://www.smartcitiesworld.net/news/news/smart-cities-report-forecasts-trillions-in-economic-growth-2528
16.
https://www.pitneybowes.com/us/location-intelligence/case-studies/derbyshire-county-council.html
17.
https://www.pitneybowes.com/us/location-intelligence/case-studies/peabody-housing-association.html
18.
https://www.pitneybowes.com/us/location-intelligence/case-studies/dorset-county-council.html
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