How COVID-19 could speed up smart-city visions

A smart city is an urban area that uses different types of electronic Internet of things (IoT) sensors to collect data and then use insights gained from that data to manage assets, resources and services efficiently. This includes data collected from citizens, devices, and assets that is processed and analyzed to monitor and manage traffic and transportation systems, power plants, utilities, water supply networks, waste management, crime detection, information systems, schools, libraries, hospitals, and other community services.(Source - wikipedia)

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The pandemic lockdowns have shown how much healthier city life could be without clogged streets, deafening noise and polluted air. But will the virus boost efforts for greener cities? The technology is already there.

The pandemic has achieved what climate activists and green technology campaigners have not even dared to dream so far: virtually empty city streets, clean air to breath and no airplanes in the skies.

According to the latest data from Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, Germany's three biggest cities saw their traffic fall by more than a third during the weeks in which lockdown measures were imposed in March, April and May, significantly reducing both rush-hour traffic congestions and CO2 emissions.

With sweeping stay-at-home orders now gradually being relaxed in Germany and elsewhere, authorities all over the world are wondering whether the pre-COVID-19 traffic madness will return to their cities or if there's an alternative that can make them healthier, greener and a lot smarter than previously.

Smart traffic lights

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Michael Ganser, an engineer with German telematics systems provider Kapsch TrafficCom, believes there's a big opportunity for city planners to transform inner-city transportation in line with smarter principles, including traffic control and information, smart parking management, street-usage fees and what he calls pop-up bicycle lanes aimed at encouraging people to leave their cars at home.

"A more intelligent steering of traffic lights alone could reduce street congestion by 25%" and digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and big data processing could bring about a significant improvement at relatively small cost.

"All new cars are already outfitted with smart tools, and mobile phones boast the necessary tracking features. All it now takes is an upgrade to the existing traffic infrastructure".

To begin with, Ganser wants to establish "adaptive" traffic-lights management systems in German cities that quickly react to specific traffic situations and change traffic flows.

The company he works for has successfully launched such systems in Madrid, Mumbai and Quito, and at a cost of just about €2.50 ($2.78) per citizen. Operating the system will cost these cities another €1 per person and year.

At the same time, however, authorities would save up to €500 per person and year due to lowering congestion-related costs by 25%.

The savings could even be higher, if smart traffic lights would be allowed to relay routing options back into passenger-car systems. "This would cut traffic jams in half, and save cities about €1,000 per person and year" .

Modern traffic-management systems, also known as telematics systems, would basically finance themselves, the German engineer argues, because imminent reductions in CO2 emissions would automatically lead to fewer carbon certificates that cities would have to buy under existing or planned carbon trading schemes.

Freeing up the data

The current virus pandemic could possibly provide a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for speeding up the introduction of digital technologies aimed at improving our lives.

The chief executive of German IT-consultancy DXC Technology, considers monitoring current social-distancing guidelines as one of the most imminent areas of using digital technology during the pandemic. Observing the rules at workplaces, he cites as an example, could be "facilitated" through wearable sensors sounding distance alarms.

Moreover, facial scanning for body temperature, but without identity recognition, could improve infection control at railway stations and at events where many people come together such as concerts.

The digital infrastructure, of course, needs to be in place, Eldracher stresses, and laments patchy networks in many German cities and communities that are still holding up digital developments.

The DXC Technology CEO has a vision of a post-COVID-19 digital Germany that many will find breathtaking, if not revolutionary, for a country frequently mocked as a bureaucratic nightmare, and one with the toughest of data privacy rules.

"City authorities could, for example, use the data gathered from their own monitoring stations of traffic flows, road construction activity and car emissions and put that on an open-source platform. Municipal and private companies could then analyze the data and send information directly onto people's on-board car systems or smartphones."

Already existing analytical tools from Google or Waze could be integrated, making it much more comfortable for drivers to avoid congestions or find a free parking lot. "Much untapped potential" would also lie in local firms and startups.

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Source: www.dw.com