What is a smart city?

What is a smart city?

Smart cities, as the name suggests, offer an alternate ‘smart’ way of life. It is a way of employing a combination of Information and Communication Technologies to connect components across a city. This impacts everyday tasks of the residents by managing the smooth upkeep of life in every possible way.

There’s no limit to how many features of a city or housing society these developed technologies are going to affect. However, the basic function is aimed at managing daily life. Broadly, there are five key technologies that make a smart city work. These include:

• Smart Energy

Energy usage is calculated on the basis of data collected, and then through smart grids it is regulated. An example of this is regulating at which points and at what specific times the streetlights would be lit up. This will moderate energy consumption in this city and help reduce costs.

• Smart Transportation

This deals with making transportation, traffic monitoring and parking smarter to reduce the time associated with each task. Smart traffic lights monitor the flow of traffic and adjust the duration of their signals accordingly. This technology, in its varied forms, has been implemented in various European countries as well.

• Smart data

Through an open data portal, the entire city’s data is fed into a system and it is analysed, this ensures a continuous feedback loop that helps make these systems more cohesive and thorough. This is a move away from conventional methods of data collection, and can be done within the stipulated time ensuring the continuity in systems improvement.

• Smart infrastructure

Through the collected data, the need for improving the existing infrastructural facilities are evaluated. This ensures that the city’s administration is always trying to innovate and provide for facilities that would be necessary with increasing population and changing demographics.

• Smart mobility

Smart mobility is the idea of being able to manoeuvre the social landscape in every way of possible. It allows the users to be able to move about easily, by way of providing them with all the information they would need.

Smart cities in Pakistan

Smart cities are the wave of the future and are going to revolutionise the scope of living globally. They are a way of integrating systems and making lives better in every way possible. In Pakistan, various developers are establishing housing societies on the pattern of smart cities. These include projects such as Capital Smart City and Top City-1. Both of these projects employ IT in various facets of living. While these aren’t cities, the projects are aimed at providing people with a mini-city project where all amenities of an urban lifestyle are provided, that too in a smart way.

The data portals calculate the number of inhabitants, and then estimate the provision of amenities on the basis of the number of inhabitants. These amenities include providing a garbage disposal system, along with transportation facilities, etc.

Smart cities are a revolutionary way of living, aimed at providing smarter solutions to basic problems.

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