FEATURE: SMART CITIES
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
As the demand for Smart
Cities is picking up pace
across the region, business
leaders must operate
with a smart approach to
build the city of tomorrow.
Roland Hechwartner,
Technical Plenary Chair of
oneM2M, explores how
oneM2M’s technology
ensures Smart City
deployments are scalable
and cost-effective.
in the market. By selecting a horizontal IoT
platform, it enables different IoT use cases
to be supported by the same platform,
eliminating vendor lock-in and ensuring
Smart City deployments are scalable and
cost-effective. At the core of this horizontal
approach is standardisation.
A load of rubbish?
A Smart City approach offers residents a
convenient and hassle-free way of living
with the lowest possible use of resources,
enabled by technology and innovative
solutions. This approach also brings new
benefits to city authorities, who have a
golden opportunity when it comes to
utilising the data generated by Smart
City applications – but Smart Cities also
bring challenges in regard to the cost and
logistics surrounding implementation.
s the Internet of Things
(IoT) continues to gain
traction across a number
of cities in Europe, the
range of potential services
and solutions available is vast – from waste
management to complex services such as
integrated traffic management. While the
first wave of the future, the smart meter,
is already implemented in the majority
of homes, other deployments to bring
smart services to all aspects of daily life are
continuing to pick up pace. As a result, the transition to smart services
will take time. In the area of waste
management, for example, where the
sanitation and emptying of bins can be
managed through remote connectivity,
it may take several procurement cycles to
install connected bins in public arenas, on
streets and around recreational spaces.
However, not everything would be upgraded
at once. Through competitive bidding
and public procurement rules, different
vendors would supply waste bins. Anecdotal
evidence indicates that each supplier will
use a proprietary connectivity and status
reporting solution.
Deploying such solutions with different
requirements and characteristics in terms of
data volume, frequency and levels of latency,
increases the need for an interoperable
framework, especially as technologies
continue to expand their global presence The result of this is technology and data
integration headaches, creating friction for
cities that want to make optimal, data-driven
decisions. The alternative is to operate
several silos and absorb the associated costs.
To add to the complication, a city might later
A
A smarter
approach to
Smart Cities
42
INTELLIGENTCIO
www.intelligentcio.com