Conclusion
INTERCONNECTION is important in building smart cities. This means that each component of a city should “communicate” with one another in order to make life easier for its population.
University of Bremen Prof. Hans Dietrich Haasis said in a forum a smart economy may base its data from mobile usage, which links all other components through the Internet. A smart city is a place wherein almost everything is automatic: from home to health care, to work.
“Smartphones are changing the landscape to digital,” he said. “Through innovation, we can use data from the smartphone to develop smart services, such as assisted living or electronic health, build smart homes that are connected to smart grids, and even smart factories.”
Thus, connection, Haasis said, is indispensable, as this will help computers process data to solve problems, such as traffic congestion.
ICT role
ATENEO de Manila University School of Science and Engineering Prof. Kardi Teknomo added that the information and communications technology (ICT) industry can help as early as now by providing mobile usage data from common people that can be used as a basis for formulae in solving gridlocks.
“Our problem is how to build a network of tools to analyze traffic congestion,” Teknomo said. “We have abundant mobile data from common people, from these, we can actually collect some kind of trajectory data, which we can use to create an ideal—not
delusional—condition.”
Haasis noted that, to do this, several components must communicate with one another to produce a precise solution.
“In a smart city, we have to connect the traffic, information and even energy-supply networks with each other. The connection is not only meaningful in a technology point of view, but also meaningful to new businesses,” he said.
Haasis added: “When I think about new business models, I take into account a special category of needs, such as logistics, mobility, tourism, working environment, living environment, shopping and entertainment. We have these special ‘transpirational’ logistics needs; we have a portfolio needs.”
As such, the ICT industry will play a key role in developing tech to provide these in a smart city.
India shows the way how.
India Modi-fied
FROM digital connectivity to sanitation and child mortality, Narendra Modi’s tenure has impacted day-to-day life for over 1.2 billion people. In May 2014 Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured the largest election victory in three decades amid a backlash over a bevy of corruption scandals and policy missteps that pushed growth to near decade lows.
With this historic mandate, India’s prime minister has pushed through a slew of big-bang reforms, including the introduction of a goods-and-service tax, a reduction in fuel subsidies and the implementation of an inflation target.
Modi also embarked this month on the biggest gamble of his political career through a controversial ban on high-value currency notes. India’s biggest crackdown against corruption in almost four decades risks an economic slowdown and a popular backlash.
At the halfway point of his five-year tenure, there are milestones that show how the prime minister has “Modi-fied” one of the world’s fastest-growing large economies.
Boosting connectivity
ONE of Modi’s signature programs is the Smart Cities Mission, which aims to convert 100 cities by 2020 to ‘smart cities’ to boost the quality of life through urbanization.
According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s annual report, the number of phones per 100 people in India has increased from 75.23 in 2014 to 79.38 in 2015, the latest available data.
Modi has been keen on his “Digital India” initiative, which aims to achieve goals, such as providing high-speed Internet in rural villages and offering government services online. Overall wireless subscribers, which includes cell-phone services and the like, grew from 904.51 million people in 2014, to 969.9 in 2015. In the rural part of the country, growth was significantly stronger with the number of wireless subscribers jumping from 371.78 million in 2014 to 414.8 million in 2015, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority.
That growth is expected to accelerate this year with Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd., the wireless telecom service of Reliance Industries Ltd., launching free service from September 5 to December 31. The company aims to add 100 million subscribers by the end of 2016.
Dangerous for pedestrians
IN the United States, Florida’s metropolitan areas are the most dangerous, a study from Smart Growth America (SGA), a Washington-based organization that promotes walkable cities, revealed.
Eight of the 10 cities where pedestrians are at the greatest peril are in Florida, according to SGA’s Pedestrian Danger Index, which compares the number of traffic fatalities with census data on the number of people in each metropolitan area who walk to work. They include Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville, the second-, third-, and fourth-biggest cities in the state. Miami, Florida’s largest city by population, was 11th-most dangerous among the nation’s 104 biggest metros.
It doesn’t help that the state’s population growth took off in the post-World War II boom, when planners high on the fumes of unleaded gasoline dreamed up urban places that prioritized cars over people. But cities in all parts of the country have wide roads without enough safe places to cross.
Part of the answer is demographics, according to Emiko Atherton, director of the National Complete Streets Coalition.
“In a city-like Seattle, high-income people are out on the streets, and walking is almost looked at as a luxury activity,” she said, adding that wealthier pedestrians have been more successful at advocating for safer streets.
In states such as Florida, “the people who are walking are doing it because they have to, not because they want to.”
Patrick Clark and Narae Kim, Bloomberg News
Image credits: Gregorius Bhisma Adinaya | dreamstime.com