Smart cities: moving from reactive to predictive resource management
Smart Cities has a wide range of definitions across the industry with lots of promises being made on technology that can achieve ambitious outcomes. At SAGE we have a simple and concise vision on what Smart Cities is:
Smart Cities is the optimisation of city resource allocation through data, which allows reactive processes to become predictive.
But what does this mean in practice and how do we achieve this predictive nirvana? Most organisations undergo this transformation in three stages:
In this stage, there are often personnel or equipment on standby, waiting to respond to an incident or situation. This stage also represents a planning approach where far more facilities are built than required because there is uncertainty around the actual number of visitors in an area.
Waste management – Bins are emptied on a schedule whether they are full and overflowing, or empty.
Urban planning – A new area is built with excess spare car parks, seats or bathrooms because it is not known how many people visit the area.
Irrigation – An oval is watered on a fixed schedule, regardless of the environmental conditions.
Transport – The road network is planned using historical road counts taken over one day from the last 10 years and delays are expected when travelling from one place to another.
In this stage there is a reduction in faults, congestion and delays. Resources are more efficiently allocated, meaning that there are lower capital costs in planning and less ongoing expenditure for maintenance and support.
Waste management – Bins are emptied when they reach a threshold level or the appropriate schedule is calculated based on historical trends.
Urban planning – Pedestrian movement counts indicate that there are 150 visitors per hour and they stay for an average of 45 minutes, requiring two sets of amenities. Car parks in surrounding areas are measured to be underutilised so a reduced number of new car parks are required, resulting in more space for public art.
