FEATURE THE AGE OF THE SMART CITY
The age of the smart city F
ROM THE ENTERTAINMENT system that learns what you want to watch to the thermostat that determines when best to heat your house, improvements
in technology and falling prices have led to a network of ‘smart’ equipment that is changing the way we interact with our homes and offices, saving time and effort and helping us to make the most efficient use of resources. But these same principles can apply on a grander scale in our streets, public spaces and municipal facilities too. We’re moving into the age of the smart city. “Smart cities are developing from the ground
up,” explains Michael Batty, Professor of Planning at University College London. “We’re seeing the spread
“ It’s time for a huge revolution
in planners’ training to be much more scientifically literate
of computing into public spaces and areas such as transport and energy.” As technology has become smaller, cheaper and wireless, it can be used in more ways to monitor usage and automate decision- making – such as turning on a streetlight or letting you know when the next bus is going to arrive. Swapping a manual switch for a bit of
computer code can be helpful, but it’s not by itself revolutionary. “Most of smart city management is
”
Improvements in technology are helping researchers, planners, technology experts and councils monitor the way we interact with our cities, automate decision-making and make cities more efficient places to live and work. By Aaron Boardley
really about routine activities,” says Professor Batty. “The bigger issues tend not to be automatable.” But, as the use of smart technology grows, it provides a whole host of data that could now be used to inform those bigger issues and make a larger impact on the future of a city. Take transport. As Professor Batty points out: “Planners can change how a city operates, but Transport for London is not a planning agency as such – they run the tube.” Transport for London has been using smart technology for several years in the form of Oyster – a smartcard which allows users to quickly and wirelessly pay for the tube and bus travel. Though its primary role may not be to change the face of construction in London, its data is too useful to disregard. “A lot of technology is not designed to collect data, but rather data is a by-product,” says Professor Batty. That by-product should not be wasted. Planners may be primarily concerned with changing land use, but using data to do so intelligently – with strategically built cycle paths, for example – can nudge behaviour to change how a city operates. So should there by more collaboration between planners and those who make the city run? “Absolutely!” says Professor Batty. ”There’s a disjunction between management and planning. Lots of planning tasks are farmed out to consultants who can really be informed by the big data from new technology – they could benefit enormously.” But changing the way planners operate isn’t a quick fix; it needs to start from first principles. “It’s time for a huge revolution in planners’ training to be much more scientifically literate, for them to be educated in new technologies.” The transport, energy, financial and social elements of a city don’t function in isolation, though – they’re increasingly interconnected, making it hard to model what the consequences of a single change may be. With increased complexity, bigger questions need to be asked about a city’s resilience, which require input from all sorts of stakeholders. Ultimately, the groups who are affected by a changing city can be the very people to solve its problems, and businesses providing the smart technology have a big role to play in engaging with the adapting communities to find out exactly what is needed. These businesses can be involved in two ways, according to Adrian Ulisse, the CEO of Ethos Smart who is researching and providing solutions for the development of smart cities.
10 SOCIETY NOW AUTUMN 2014
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