IOT And just what are smart cities ? Think about your phone and its capabilities , but on a city-wide connectivity scale . In essence , they are crucial for addressing urban challenges , with the IoT playing a pivotal role in their success – from water and electricity , traffic flow , and parking to refuse removal and sewerage – creating more effective , efficient management .
At the heart of the smart city is the smart sensor . Distributed in the tens of thousands across smart city test neighbourhoods , or even entire boroughs , IoT sensors monitor everything from traffic patterns and footfall to utility usage and emissions .
If local governments are curiously eyening smart city capabilities in their own backyard , they need to look at deploying sensors while making use of those that already exist , harnessing the vital data required to catapult their cities into the future .
Data key to enabling smart cities In smart city environments with IoT , everything from vehicles to hand-held devices is constantly interacting with one other , generating not only a large volume of data , but also different variants of datasets .
As Tikiri Wanduragala , Senior Consultant for Infrastructure Solutions at Lenovo , explains , this data is the lifeblood of smart cities . “ It flows directly between the cameras , sensors and metres that connect our community services , from transport systems to water networks . aimagazine . com 91