There is no doubt that smart cities hold great promise in helping make our communities safer and better places to live. But, as with every new technical development, there are risks. What are the components of a Smart City? What are the problems? More importantly, can governments keep up with technology?

People, when they first hear the term “Smart City”, tend to think of energy, specifically, the arguments surrounding the shift to sustainable and green energy. But power generation is only part of the Smart City concept. “I don’t like to just talk about energy when I talk about smart cities,” said Mr. Yasuhiro Kawai, a researcher at Nikkei Business Publications, the organizer of SCW 2014. “Smart cities are much more than that. A smart city is, in essence, a concept that introduces technology to create positive changes and improve people’s lives”.

There is no single template for making a city smart, and the first step every smart city program must take is a local approach to solving local problems. Those approaches can be expanded to include a larger area, but it is important to start small. The opportunities to apply technology in a community are numerous.

An important example in Japan right now is how many commuter rail companies in the country have integrated their monthly rail passes with an RFID chip, providing consumers with a kind of electronic wallet. Every major railway company had its own system some seven to ten years ago, and each system was fundamentally incompatible with the others. JR East’s Suica network, for example, could not work at the Icoca terminals operated by JR West. Tokyu-operated Pasmo worked only on Tokyu-operated lines. A casual observer could be forgiven for thinking that this attempt to implement smart city technology was not very smart.

However, since 2009, most systems have created reciprocal agreements and passengers can now transfer across railway lines with a single card. The point of sale has also been integrated. Mr. Kawai brought this up as a small starting point. “It seemed really disorganized at first. You had all these systems and they didn’t work well together. Now, as the technology and the operations that support the technology have gotten better, they’re almost perfect,” he said.

Connecting Peoples and Lives

In addition, Mr. Kawai points to the pilot program in the city of Katsuragi in Japan’s Nara prefecture, east of Osaka, where a group of older people signed up to receive health-monitoring bracelets. As Mr. Kawai explained, the town’s population has shrunk in recent decades as most of the young people have fled to the larger cities of Osaka and Tokyo to make a living. That has left behind a sparse population of older people who are not as connected to the community as in previous generations. Medical bracelets monitor a person’s vital signs and will notify a nearby hospital via the Internet if a problem is detected. It’s just a pilot program, but it’s also a very real example of how even a small rural town can benefit from Smart City technology.

Perhaps the most compelling target for Smart City upgrades involves a community’s infrastructure and the cars on its streets. There have been several notable advances in infrastructure science recently, the most notable of which is perhaps the concept of a solar highway.

A pair of entrepreneurs in Sandpoint, Idaho, have developed a 5-foot hexagonal solar panel clad in high-strength tempered glass that can withstand the elements and the constant pounding of cars and trucks on the road. Thousands of these panels, interlocking and connected by software, can provide an intelligent driving surface that can do everything from illuminate driving lanes at night to delineate pedestrians crossing a street, all while providing electricity to the community. and, of course, electric cars. that will circulate on those roads.

Cars are also getting a makeover, and human drivers may soon be obsolete. Autonomous cars, as they are called, are cars with sophisticated navigation software on board that can choose the most efficient or safe routes to take their passengers. Although Google has taken most of the limelight in this area, Audi, Volvo and even MIT are doing research on self-driving cars. Many of the cars have just come out of the lab and are in limited street testing. However, it doesn’t take much to put these two developments together to envision a city where electric and self-driving cars cruise lit roads generating power for the community.

challenges and opportunities

However, despite all its advantages, smart cities have several obstacles to overcome. Perhaps the most important among them is the acceptance of some people in the community. What could be the problem? It turns out that the problem is twofold. First, people generally want to see a tangible economic benefit from an investment in the community. “For example,” explained Mr. Kawai, “if you invest community resources to put sensors on a bridge to notify maintenance ahead of time of a needed repair, that’s great. It actually saves money. But, people generally doesn’t see the benefit. Sure, the bridge gets fixed before little problems become big problems, but that doesn’t mean people recognize it as a tangible improvement.”

While getting people to see that issues like civic maintenance are taken care of before they become big problems is a hurdle for Smart City deployments, another bigger concern is what the technology represents. The ubiquitous location of technology in everything someone does, from smart cards at the point of sale to public transport and street cameras, in addition to the geolocation functionality present in today’s smartphones, has raised fears to create a “Big Brother” state where the notion of privacy becomes a forgotten relic of the past.

Implementing a Smart City program is a delicate operation. Mr. Toshiya Mochida, also of Nikkei BP, suggests starting small. “Start with a small area of ​​your city, with a technology for a very specific purpose. Test it for a while, then ask for feedback. The most important thing is that governments and organizations need to be transparent about their goals. What information will they collect? and because?” The collection of information by governments and organizations is a primary concern, says Mr. Kawai. “The vast majority of information will just be files, locked away somewhere, never to be seen or heard from again. But still, it’s out there. Will it be handled? Will it be destroyed? These are things to consider too,” he said.

Governments also pose a potential problem for Smart City development. Laws often do not keep pace with changes. Technology generally advances faster than governments can react, leaving many technological advances in a legal gray area. The best cited example is copyright law in the face of the rise of the Internet in the late 1990s. Copyright laws created in the mid-20th century did not anticipate the complexities uncovered when record companies battled Napster and other download services, and legal frameworks are still being developed to ensure artists are fairly compensated for their work.

Driverless cars appear to be the next chapter where technology advances faster than the government’s ability to regulate it. A California Highway Patrol officer interviewed for this article said, “This opens up a whole new area of ​​the rules of the road. We need to look at licensing, insurance, safety standards, all of these areas. Can I”. I don’t see this going mainstream.” Today, even with a smart car, a qualified and licensed driver must be in command of the vehicle.

The key question, of course, is: “Where will Smart City technology be in 5 to 10 years?” While it’s tempting to do so, you can’t really use the technological achievements of the last decade as a roadmap for the future. If you were in 2004 and then tried to map out what things would be like in 2014, could you really see how a simple cell phone, which had basic calling and maybe email/text functions back then, became the “computer? in your pocket” what are smartphones now? Innovative technologies being researched now, and those yet to be conceived, will undoubtedly change the world and the way we live by 2024. Technological developments are both iterative and explosive. Even a certain technology can branch out into multiple applications. Wearables, for example, seem to be disappearing in the exercise and fitness circuit, but they’re proving their worth among the elderly and people who require constant monitoring.

One thing is for sure: technology and those who develop it will continue to change the way we live. The Smart Cities concept is being tested and is an exciting and ongoing experiment.