Woman on streets holding a smart device

Smart devices and other technologies continue to shape our everyday. Just look at your home. You may find your place stocked with intelligent devices such as smart lightbulbs, smart speakers, smart thermostats, and more. Now that technologies are becoming more sophisticated and the Internet of Things continues to expand, the trend for intelligent spaces extends beyond our homes to entire cities.

According to McKinsey research published in TechRepublic, the smart city industry is projected to generate 60% of the world’s GDP by 2025 – all made possible by the key technologies that run a smart city. We look at the future of smart cities and what technology trends we believe will transform the way people live and how societies run.

Smart transportation

The future of smart cities will look into more technologies that reduce congestion and the cost of monitoring parking, investing in multi-modal transportation, smart traffic lights, and smart parking. By making parking smarter, people will spend less time circling city blocks to look for parking. Smart traffic lights will have built-in cameras that can monitor traffic flow. Intelligent traffic systems that use sensors to collect data about the movement of people will reduce pollution, traffic, and vehicle-related accidents, resulting in a healthier population.

Smart IoT devices

IoT devices tie everything together in a smart city. Fusing sensor information and third-party social networks will create the data that makes a smart city work. The future of smart cities will have more sophisticated IoT devices that can help manage the resources of a megacity population. For example, smart bins with smart sensors can report how full the bins are in real-time, which means trash collectors don’t have to waste time travelling to collect only half-full bins.

Smart infrastructure

The future of the smart city will include technology-driven smart city solutions that provide predictive analytics that may help identify areas that need repair and maintenance work before an infrastructure failure happens. These smart sensors can transmit data showing any structural changes such as tilts and cracks and notify personnel that there’s a need for inspection. Cities will be able to plan better with their ability to analyse relevant data on infrastructure, enabling proactive maintenance and better planning for future demand.

Smart energy

The rise of home solar power systems, electric vehicles, hardware, and software technology will allow better grid management for smart cities. Buildings and homes can monitor energy usage actively and report this data to utilities to reduce their costs, leading to lower pollution and better efficiency. In Schenectady, New York, LED street lights automatically adjust based on real-time data. Homes in Amsterdam are equipped with smart energy meters designed to incentivise reduced energy consumption. Smart grids, smart metres, and prepaid energy applications will also pave the way for outage detection.

The future of smart cities is here

More and more people are living in cities. According to the UN, 68% of the world’s population will live in urban areas by 2050. This entails growing environmental, societal, and economic challenges. We can overcome these challenges by creating smarter cities with technologies that enable us to improve our quality of life.

Smart City is moving towards this shift by using smart technologies that help create a better everyday life for citizens. Our smart technologies help city heads with smart city planning, leveraging on with technologies that promote sustainability, public safety, energy efficiency, and overall improved quality of life. To learn more about our products and services, contact us today.