Better Governance, Better Livelihood, Better Industry

BY LUIS GUILLOT

Creating a smart city nervous system.

At Huawei, we see our smart city as a human brain that has a nervous system that’s a network that extends throughout the city and connects all of the sensors and the gathering information points that a city requires to improve its everyday operations. All those sensors throughout the city are gathered through the network, the nervous system, and it goes to your brain, your data center, where everything is processed. New ICT technologies are making it possible to deploy.

The smart streetlight in Latin America was the beacon when smart cities started. They turn on at dusk, turn off at dawn, and if something happens or it’s not working, then it’s fixed or corrected relatively promptly. Fire hydrants are monitored for water pressure. So when the fire department is deployed, they know that the nearest fire hydrant has proper pressure to be useful.

These are connected to different types of technology through what we call hybrid networks, which are wireless fiber networks where everything is connected. All the information flows through the network to your data center, where your IoT platform, Geographic Information System, and AI platform process and find correlations to help improve your decision-making.

Sensors are one of the most important parts of a smart city because you need to have the capability to grab that information to see what’s happening. In a few Latin American cities, it has been a new trend to create bicycle lanes within normal streets, so everybody started being a little bit more green.

In a big city in Latin America, citizens complained about taking space away from the roads for bicyclists. So the city installed sensors to count how many people were using them. They identified that in some parts of the city, bicycle lanes weren’t being used, but in other places, they were really popular. They had the tangible information, not just citizens complaining because they missed wide roads.

And I like this example of the smart streetlight because it changed the streetlight the way the smartphone did for the cellular phone. Before, a streetlight was just there to brighten up the night. But today, they’re doing a lot more things with this technology. You can put weather or air quality sensors and Wi-Fi access points. In Mexico City, I believe they have over 25,000 access points throughout the city.

In some places, we deployed big monitors that can provide information to citizens about what’s happening or tourist information. Some cities have created a way to get income, and they lease time on those monitors for ads.

You can also add emergency buttons or tourist assistant buttons, so if the tourist needs help, they push the button, and they’re connected to the tourist assistant call center.

I traveled throughout Latin America, and parking is always a problem. You can embed sensors into the asphalt and communicate wirelessly to your citizens via an app that tells them where a parking space is available. And they can pay for parking through the app. If somebody parks and doesn’t pay, you can send an alert for the meter maid to place a ticket as soon as possible.

You can also have a system where you can reserve spaces in a parking garage. There’s a great example of this in Shanghai, where you can reserve your parking space at Disney up to six months in advance. On the day of your visit, your space opens up, you park, and you start paying.

Water is our most pleasurable resource. And through this type of technology in your water system, you can have sensors that can inform your quality, volume, and speed of travel. If something changes, you can detect a possible leak. You can do consumption monitoring instead of sending somebody to measure. You can create better information and faster response to whatever incident has occurred.

For all these processes, connectivity is the key. Everything has to be connected to a network. Having those sensors connect to a carrier network and paying your monthly fee eats up your budget. Some cities have deployed technologies like eLTE in a private network managed by the government to prioritize the information; services go faster, you can deploy better services, and you can extend your network and do things like mobile government. Your inspectors connect to your network, so they can do everything on-site without having to come back and retype the information. For a construction inspection, you can have a drone send you live data of what’s happening on the construction site. If you’re going to fix a couple of potholes, you can detect the pothole and deploy your crew who can send you live information.

An example that we did in Gaoqing, Shandong, was a very large eLTE private network. They started to provide remote health services to farther regions. They have mobile policing, give traffic tickets, manage their waterworks, and provide better and more reliable water services. This network covers so much of the sea that they even have some smart agriculture solutions with sensors that detect the

moisture of the soil, so the irrigation system turns on, and they always have the correct amount so the plants can grow properly.

Having this type of solution transforms all of the things that you can do within a city. Everything is analyzed, all the way to their traffic lights, so they know when they’re green, when they’re red, and what time of day, and they can actively manage this. If they have a big event, they can detect the traffic flow and rapidly reprogram or change the lights’ duration so that traffic flows better instead of sending police officers to monitor.

Another thing we can do is provide Wi-Fi services to improve connectivity to everybody. We are doing this in a couple of cities in Central America where the mayors detected they had big problems because people didn’t have the money to get proper internet. So they started to deploy Wi-Fi in parks and government offices. It’s also the best way to support tourists.

What we have done with wireless is impressive. Another project we did at a stadium in Amsterdam. Cellular services are designed for medium traffic. So when you have a full stadium, the carriers don’t have the bandwidth for everybody to connect. So, the stadium owners asked us to do full Wi-Fi coverage. When you’re inside the stadium, you will always have connectivity. But we went a step further: If you are a ticketholder, they know exactly where you are in the stadium, so you don’t have to go to the concession stand. You can simply say, “Can you send me a couple of pretzels, two hot dogs, and some soft drinks?” And they deliver it to your seat.

But when everything’s connected, you now have a lot of information and data that you have to go through. And on this, we talk about an Intelligent Operation Center, where you gather all of the information from the sensors, tellers, and systems, and you analyze it and run correlations of what’s happening. So you are always aware of the state of the city, and you can take better actions and make better decisions, like the example of why they kept those bicycle lanes.

At Huawei, we have done over 120 projects and have more than three decades of experience delivering complex engineering solutions worldwide. But this is the key success factor: If you’re going to go into a smart city project, you need top leadership. The head of the city has to be involved, and you have to have a strong team to help them execute because there will be barriers. Do this with a strong partner that has the size, capability, and experience to do what you’re trying to do.

Lastly, you need not just a solid investment but a reasonable return on your investment. You know that you’re going to be spending money, but you have to be reasonable in what you are getting. It’s not a business; it’s improving the city so that your citizens, industry, commerce, and schools can grow and help you grow. So it’s a virtual circle. You are doing better government services so the citizens can have a better livelihood so you can have a better industry and commerce to improve and grow the city. And with that new income, it creates better government services.

A smart city starts with transforming your government services in the back end, so the front end, where the citizens are, is up and running with good, strong technology and services that flow together to create an exceptional experience. “SENSORS ARE ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PARTS OF A SMART CITY BECAUSE YOU NEED TO HAVE THE CAPABILITY TO GRAB THAT INFORMATION TO SEE WHAT’S HAPPENING.”

Luis Guillot

CTO of Government Solutions, Huawei Latin America & Caribbean

Mexico City, Mexico

Luis Guillot is Chief Technology Officer of Government Solutions at Huawei Latin America and Caribbean. Prior to joining Huawei, he was General Director of ICT Governance for Mexico City and Deputy Director of Technological Development at Infotec. He studied administrative and computer systems at ITESM and strategic management of information technology and strategic business management at UC Berkeley.