Have constant access to clean water supply and systematic waste management at home? Your smartphone provides you real-time traffic reports that prompt you to avoid heavy vehicle areas and help you identify readily available parking spots? And your streetlights switch on almost immediately as your car approaches the neighborhood?

If you answered mostly yes, you are living in a smart city alongside 28 other cities’ residents worldwide of more than 10 million population. According to Juniper Research, your smart city is also part of the conservation efforts towards energy savings of up to USD 15 billion by 2023!

How Do We Identify A Smart City?

To know if it is “smart” -no, it is not measured just by its level of intelligence as Gemalto describes, it is based on its intelligent framework of an interconnected network of objects that transmit and receive data using wireless technology and cloud. Like a single intelligent organism, as complex as things can get -smart cities can respond to incoming data seamlessly and using it to it to improve the components and systems that run the city.

However, do take note – a smart city is not defined only by the types of technology it uses but more on what it does with the information and data that are shared to improve its citizen quality of living without wasting unnecessary resources. As at the heart of every functioning smart city, it is the people that it serves.

How Do Smart City Solve Conventional City Problems?

Once a futuristic dream and now a reality- its citizens can experience a better urban-living environment thanks to this handful of innovative, advancing technologies at work such as the information and communication technology (ICT), Internet of Things (IoT) and geographical information system (GIS).

To provide examples which you can observe around you- see if you managed to tick some, if not all of these perks you didn’t realise you enjoy within your city:

1. Access to Clean Water Supply

A life essential that most of us take for granted – we won’t be able to have good access to this resource without an integrated smart water technology to improve its sourcing and treatments. By tracking the citizens’ consumption patterns for both utilities and end-user, smart cities can potentially reduce water waste and save plenty of delivery costs. Not to mention- we can avoid flood incidences by measuring rainfall and obtain real-time flood analysis!

2. Implement Efficient Traffic Management

Due to the smart traffic management system, your streets are outfitted with sensors that track and transmit data from cars on the road, processed and finally conveyed to traffic app platform users to give insights on traffic flow patterns, road blockages, and road conditions. It is not only useful to connect vehicles, infrastructure, public transit, and people – it helps motorists decide on the best route to take at a given time.

3. Makes Parking Much Easier

Have you spent lesser time driving aimlessly just looking for a parking spot? You can thank the embedded sensors installed on grounds that identify available parking spots near you through a real-time parking map of the city. It even makes parking enforcement officers’ jobs so much easier to know if someone parked their cars illegally – so do watch where you park!

4. Advocates Energy Efficiency

Do not be mistaken- your street lights do not have a telepathic ability but with the help of sensors, they can light up if someone is coming or stay dim when there are no cars or people around. From this alone, a magnitude of energy can be saved up to an estimated USD 10million in costings!

5. Improve Waste Removal Services

Another prime example that without sensors, this will be impossible to accomplish- smart waste bins can tell your friendly waste collection trucks if they are already full. The trucks can access such information due to a cloud-based application so that they can efficiently prioritise your location for pickups and then skip the empty ones. Isn’t it impressive?

Equally, all involved tech giants, telecommunication companies, government, and citizens play a crucial role in building a smart city. As we speak, governments across the world from Europe, the United States, and Asia are working hard with the technologist and IT leaders to materialise more visions of smart cities through the infusion of technology.

Nonetheless, there is still so much room for expansion and improvements to bring forth our smart cities to the next level. This is just a start to perfecting a digitally, sustainable living. Who knows how far we can go? We are only limited by our imagination and the knowledge we have in our hands.

Are you fascinated by the concept of smart cities and already thinking of how you can come up with solutions for more mind-blowing enhancements? Well, don’t let that spark gets ignited and not do anything! Waste none of your creativity by joining our team today. Start applying here today.

Concept by : Rizky Anggara

Written by : Michell.Lee

Design by : Risky Ramanda