In keeping with the global push for smarter living and governance, government leaders shouldn’t ignore the importance of prioritizing the implementation of intelligent infrastructure, which will underpin the smart initiatives while being able to accommodate further technological augmentation in the future. 

The promise of better financial opportunities, the easy accessibility to vital amenities like healthcare and education, and the availability of luxury are just a few among the many factors that attract people to urbanized areas. The urban population has seen and continues to see a steady rise as more people migrate to developed regions in search of comfort and growth. According to the United Nations, the urban population has grown from 751 million in 1950 to 4.2 billion in 2018 — accounting for 55% of the global population today. And this percentage will rise as the years go by. And, while the ever-present challenge of accommodating an increasing number of people will remain paramount, city planners and government officials will now also have to deal with the need for making cities ‘smarter’.

Building smarter cities involves providing convenience, enabling a higher standard of living through technology and delivering better governance without intruding in citizens’ daily lives. And creating such cities requires rethinking the existing infrastructure and replacing it with a new framework. This framework needs to be built using an amalgamation of modern technologies to form intelligent infrastructure around which all future developments will be structured. Envisaging the city of the future, its components and the role of infrastructure in it can help in emphasizing the need for intelligent infrastructure.

Envisioning the city of the future

Technology is evolving at a breakaway pace making human life more convenient by raising the standards of products and services. It is hardly a surprise, then, that the general public would want the rising standards in business brought about by technology to translate into their lives as well. And building smart cities is the answer that government officials, city planners, and other leaders are seeing as the answer to satisfying the demands of their citizens.

A smart city, through the combination of smart technological applications and informed planning,

• ensures the efficient and effective utilization of resources,

• provides convenience to citizens by dispensing and managing services like healthcare, transportation, communication, and utilities, and

• helps governing bodies to respond to the changing needs and situations in an agile manner.

A smart city uses a network of electronic devices and sensors to gather data about its citizens, infrastructure, and processes. The information gathered through these devices helps in developing insights that authorities use to make better decisions. This enhanced decision-making ability — both regarding short-term day-to-day activities and long-term plans — helps authorities perform their responsibilities like managing their assets, dispensing services, making policy changes, and initiating welfare projects much easier. These cities break the old model of interaction between governments and people, that used to be more transactional and less based on engagement.

The new model that smart cities adopt involves constant citizen engagement through applications that citizens can use to communicate with the authorities and the network of sensors that enables authorities to keep a finger on the pulse regarding everything they’re responsible for.

For example, let’s consider the transportation system in a smart city. The transportation department of the city needs to ensure that citizens can travel wherever they want through the city in the quickest, most energy-efficient, and safest way possible. They can achieve this by using sensors at various points along the roads, at intersections and at traffic signals. They can use the data gathered by the sensors to gauge the traffic volume in the different regions within the city and optimally manage traffic by controlling the timing of traffic signals. The transport system can also use sensor technology to assess the need for public transport systems at different bus stops and respond by assigning the number of public transport vehicles based on need. The transport department can also use a dedicated phone application and an online portal to allow commuters to post their grievances and report any issues with the transport systems. This not only helps in ensuring that citizens traverse through the city with ease but also helps in maximizing the overall efficiency of the transport department.

However, to enable such convenience and the responsiveness of government bodies, smart cities need to have a foundation of reliable, intelligent infrastructure that can enable the collection, transmission, storage, and processing of information.