Intro The global market for Smart City technologies is projected to reach 1.34 trillion USD by 2024, driven by the selfish exploitation of natural resources, the growing world population, and the ensuing search for sustainable ways to accommodate over seven billion people on the planet. Cities are becoming smart not just through the automation of day-to-day functions but also through how these functions can be monitored and analyzed for optimizing resource utilization, reducing costs, enhancing operational efficiency, and improving quality of life. Globally, engineers are turning towards new technology ‐ such as the 5G, Cyber-Physical Systems, and data analytics searching for new solutions and approaches that will enhance city transportation, water, and energy usage, waste management, and a host of other infrastructure issues that underpin the operation of cities and the lifestyle of urban citizens.
Smart cities, by their very nature, generate a significant amount of data in their daily operations. For example, Open Data and IoT are driving cities to collect and make available significant additional amount of data; some of it is static but increasingly large parts are real‐time. If managed and analyzed well, this big data can offer insights and economic value that cities and city stakeholders can utilize to improve efficiency and lead to innovate new services that will enhance the lives of citizens.
Cyber‐physical systems and the IoT are defined generally as the connection and virtual representation of physical devices to the Internet, and they are critical to the growth of smart cities. While many parts of the traditional city infrastructure have been monitored for many years, such as for water, electricity, and traffic, this monitoring was often using proprietary technologies and maintained as individual silos. The IoT has changed that situation radically. City infrastructures, some of which may have been traditionally monitored, are now being connected using open standard protocols such as HTTP and TCP/IP and made accessible through web technologies such as REST.
Companies have traditionally built out specific and siloed applications like smart lighting, surveillance cameras, or traffic sensors, but going forward they will begin to adopt a farther view and think about building up a necessary infrastructure to support all smart city applications. The onset of 5G networks will not only bring much faster speeds but also denser small cell deployments due to distance limitations with millimeter wave technology and ultra-low latency applications at the edge. 5G will foster new smart city applications like 5G small cell densification, waste management, parking, smart meters, public safety (surveillance cameras), traffic management, and coordination of departments for emergency services.
This edition of Govt CIO Outlook features companies that are at the forefront of offering smart city solutions. Govt CIO Outlook’s editorial board has assessed and shortlisted some of the most prominent organizations in the industry. We present to you – “Top 10 Smart City Solution Providers – 2019”.
