Top 10 smart cities in the world with big data application cases

▶ Currently, urbanization is advancing across the world. With the development of the Internet and information technology, supported by cloud platform, big data, Internet of Things and other technologies, “smart city”, which was first born under the concept of “smart planet” in the United States, has gradually become the development trend and choice of urban construction in various countries around the world.

Since the early 21st century, the United States, The United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and other countries have first carried out the practice of smart city, and many classic cases have been born.

The first smart city in the United States, as well as the first smart city in the world, is characterized by its emphasis on intelligent construction. To keep Dubuque livable city advantage, and have a greater development in business, the municipal government, in collaboration with IBM plans to use the Internet of things technology to connect digital and all of the resources city, water, electricity, oil, gas, traffic and public services, and by monitoring, analysis and integration of various data intelligently in response to public demand, and reduce the energy consumption and cost of the city. The city took the lead in the construction of hydropower data, installing numerical control hydropower meters in households and shops throughout the city to not only record the amount of resources used, but also use low-flow sensor technology to prevent resource leakage. The data recorded by the instrument will be reflected on the integrated monitoring platform in a timely manner for analysis, integration and public display.

Through data mining, fire is effectively prevented. According to statistics, there are about one million buildings in New York, and an average of about 3,000 buildings have serious fires every year. The Fire Department of New York has broken down the factors that can cause a house to catch fire into 60 categories, such as whether it is a poor, low-income home, whether the building is old and whether the building has an elevator. Excluding small single-family houses or townhouses that are less hazardous, the analysts used a specific algorithm to score the 330,000 buildings in the city that need to be inspected individually, calculate the fire hazard index, and identify key targets for monitoring and inspection. The data monitoring program has been expanded to cover more than 2,400 items, including schools, libraries and other places with high population density. Despite public doubts about the relationship between data analysis and the effectiveness of preparedness measures, the number of fires has actually declined.

Through “installing sensors on lampposts”, urban data mining is carried out. In Chicago, ubiquitous sensors have been installed on lampposts. The lamp post sensor collects information about city roads and detects environmental data such as air quality, light intensity, noise levels, temperature and wind speed. According to the Chicago City Information Technology Commission, the lamppost sensor is not an invasion of privacy. It detects signals and does not record the MAC and Bluetooth addresses of mobile devices. In the next few years, “lamp post sensors” will be installed in batches, covering all the streets of Chicago. The initial purchase, installation and commissioning cost of each sensor device will range from $215 to $425, and the average annual electricity cost after operation will be about $15. The project has technical and financial backing from cisco, Intel, qualcomm, ZebraTechnologies, MOTOROLA and schneider.

Use data to save power. The city partnered with Microsoft and Accenture on a pilot project to reduce energy use in the area. The project collects and analyzes numerous data sets from the city’s building management system to identify, through predictive analysis, where energy use can be reduced or not needed at all. The goal is to reduce electricity consumption in the area by 25 percent.

Use data to manage traffic. During the 2012 Olympics, TransportforLondon, the public body responsible for running London’s public transport network, used real-time information gathered from CCTV cameras, metrocards, mobile phones and social networks to ensure limited disruption to train and bus routes, as use rose by 25 per cent. To ensure smooth traffic.

Making full use of sensors, a “smart house” pilot has been set up. Sensors are installed around the house and the information sent back allows a central computer to control various household devices. The smart house is equipped with a computer terminal as the core of the monitoring and communication network, using infrared and sensor cushion can automatically monitor the elderly walking in the house. The room is equipped with medical equipment that can measure heart rate and blood pressure of the elderly and automatically transmit the results to the relevant doctors.

It is one of the earliest smart city construction cities in the world and a model of smart city construction in Europe. As the largest city in the Netherlands, Amsterdam is home to more than 400,000 households and accounts for a third of the country’s carbon dioxide emissions. In an effort to improve its environment, the city has launched two projects, WestOrange and Geuzenveld, to reduce CARBON dioxide emissions and energy consumption through energy-efficient and intelligent technologies. It has also launched the EnergyDock project, which provides 154 power outlets at 73 docking stations in the port of Amsterdam, allowing cruise ships and cargo ships to recharge their batteries, using clean energy to generate electricity instead of polluting oil engines. In order to save energy, the smart Building project was initiated to minimize energy consumption without negatively affecting the office and accommodation functions of the building, while at the same time enabling more efficient operation of the power system based on specific data analysis of the building’s energy use. In order to create sustainable public space, TheClimateStreet project was launched to alleviate congestion on Utrecht street.

Remarkable achievements have been made in traffic congestion control. The Swedish National Highway Administration and Stockholm City Hall have both alleviated traffic congestion and reduced air pollution through the construction of smart transportation system, which has become the label of Stockholm. The city has installed 18 roadside monitors on roads leading to the city center, using technologies such as RADIO frequency identification (RFID), laser scanning and automatic photography to automatically identify all vehicles. With the help of these devices, the city has reduced congestion levels by 25 per cent and greenhouse gas emissions by 40 per cent by charging congestion taxes on vehicles entering and leaving the city centre between 6.30pm and 18.30pm on Mondays and Fridays.

Known as the “City of Bicycles”, it has made remarkable achievements in green transportation. In order to encourage citizens to use rail transit with the least carbon dioxide emissions, the city has made an overall plan to ensure that citizens can use rail transit within 1 kilometer of their homes. Promote the use of an intelligent bicycle for traffic within 1 km of the road. The bikes are equipped with batteries that store energy in the wheels and equipped with radio frequency identification (RFIT) or GLOBAL Positioning System (GPS) on the handlebars to form a “bike stream” and ensure traffic through a signal system. At the same time, the municipal government has made great efforts to improve the construction of supporting facilities along the way, such as establishing service stations and providing convenient repair tools to facilitate bicycle travel. By 2015, 50% of Copenhagen residents are expected to cycle to and from the city’s suburbs.

The city teamed up with IBM researchers to create a system that could help reduce traffic congestion on the roads, using real-time traffic reports to detect and predict congestion. If operators see a traffic jam is likely, they can adjust traffic signals accordingly to keep traffic flowing smoothly. The system is especially useful in emergencies, such as when an ambulance is en route to a hospital. Over time, the algorithms in the system “learn” from the most successful suggestions and apply that knowledge to future predictions.

The adoption of sensors makes urban management more convenient. In the pilot zone of the city’s high-tech center, a small black box at a traffic light sends a signal to a receiver in the hands of a nearby blind person, which vibrates to remind him that he has reached an intersection. Small bumps in the ground are parking sensors that drivers can download from a special app to tell them when a parking space is available. Barcelona’s magnificent Sagrada Familia Cathedral also has a sophisticated parking sensor system to guide buses to park; The grass in the test area is covered with sensors — humidity sensors that sense the temperature of the ground to determine when the grass should be watered; Sensors placed on the bin can detect whether the bin is full, and the bin is equipped with smell sensors, which will automatically sound an alarm if the bin’s smell is beyond normal standards.

As Europe’s most data-intensive city, universities and telecoms operators have joined forces to install around 18,000 fixed and mobile sensors of various types in the city with the help of an €8 million grant from the European Commission. In addition to monitoring air pollution, noise and other environmental conditions, the sensors also indicate when trash bins need to be emptied or streetlights burned out and turned off. Sensors buried under the road can detect open parking Spaces and relay the information to major intersections equipped with digital displays to help guide drivers to the nearest parking space. In addition, residents can easily access all kinds of relevant information about these locations online using their smartphones, using an “augmented reality” system consisting of 2,600 optical and wireless tags at tourist attractions, shops, bus stops and other locations throughout the city.

Singapore launched the Smart Nation 2015 Initiative in 2006, and its government portal has made available more than 5,000 data sets from more than 50 government departments. Singapore has established a “citizen-centric” e-government system in which citizens, enterprises and the government cooperate, enabling citizens and enterprises to participate in various governmental affairs anytime and anywhere. In the transport sector, Singapore has launched a number of smart transport systems such as ElectricRoadPricing. In the medical field, a comprehensive medical information platform has been developed. In the field of education, the use of INFORMATION and communication technologies has greatly increased students’ focus on learning. In the cultural field, the National Library of China has deployed a flexible and high-performance big data architecture to provide cost-effective solutions through cloud computing to deal with different analytical needs from strategy and tactics to actual business.