What is a Smart City?: Part 2 - Living the Dream

What is a Smart City?

Fast forward to a time when we live in what is dubbed as the "City of the Future" or a Smart City. In this city, the average day to day problems we face in our city have been minimized or eliminated thanks to technology.

Let's take a look at that scenario we talked about in Part 1 of this Smart City series.

Picking up from the moment you get off from work. Before you get into your car, you pull out your phone and check which store has all the items you need. In an instant, you already get the information you need. It is the store that is close to your house. You get in your car and drive off.

The drive to the store is relatively smooth. That is because traffic has been minimized--or eliminated in some areas--thanks to state of the art traffic control monitoring systems. These systems collect data on which roads are congested and using this data, it is able to adjust the traffic lights to signal which lanes need to be in the green and which roads should stop for now. This adjustment helps to ease the traffic congestion and cars don't end up getting stuck on a road for an hour.

On the way, an accident takes place. A car loses control an slams into the bumper of the car in front of it. Normally, it would take a while for the authorities or paramedics to arrive. But with the new smart monitoring cameras on the road, the proper authorities are contacted and the nearest unit is immediately dispatched on the scene to assist and solve those issues.

You arrive at the store parking lot and find a parking spot in no time thanks to the parking finder app that the store has created for customers. You are in and out of the grocery store in 30 mins.

You arrive home, prepare dinner, and watch some T.V. at around 9 pm, the garbage truck drives by to pick up the neighborhood's trash. Data gathered on the city about what time of the day has the least people on the streets have given the City Sanitation Department a clear idea of when the best time to collect garbage is so it won't affect anyone with its foul odor.

At around 10:30 pm, you get into bed and a few minutes later you drift into peaceful slumber. There are no more regulated power outages since the city has implemented green energy technologies. Thanks to satellite imaging, the government has determined what areas see the most sunlight and have placed solar panels all over these areas to make sure there is enough energy to sustain the city.

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What is a Smart City?: Part 1 - Painting a picture

What is a Smart City? 

To first get a better understanding and appreciation of what a smart city is and how it would be great to live in one, let's first paint a picture of what most of us usually go through in daily life.

You ready? Okay, let's start!

Imagine yourself driving to the store to pick up some groceries for dinner. It's a Monday and you just got off from a VERY stressful day at work. A few minutes into the drive, you find yourself stuck in the middle of a heavy traffic jam. 

Thirty minutes later, you've only managed to move about 20 feet. You start to get frustrated until you finally reach the intersection and find the cause of the traffic jam. Right in the middle of the intersection, three cars are locked together in a three-way metal bending accident.

You're anger at this point turns to worry as you see that one of the drivers seem to be badly hurt and there are no paramedics in sight. You do see a traffic enforcer to the side barking orders into his radio so you assume that help is on the way and continue driving to the store. 

When you finally arrive, you are confronted by another problem... Where do you park? You spend the next 20 minutes circling the parking lot until you finally come across an empty parking space. You let out a sigh of relief and park your car.

You are in the grocery store now, walking down the isles with a basket in hand. You pick up a few things on your list until you come across the most important item that you cant seem to find. You search everywhere until you finally decide to ask one of the merchandisers for assistance. He informs you that they are out of stock already but they might have stocks in their smaller branch opposite the direction you drove from the office. You groan and tell yourself that you knew you should have just gone to the other store since it was closer to your house, but you thought the bigger branch would have more stocks on everything.

You pay for your items and leave the store. You decide to stop by the other store tomorrow and head home. On the way the traffic seems to have cleared up a bit, but is still moving pretty slow. As you sit in the car, you can't help but to gag and roll your windows up, fast, because in front of your car, is a garbage truck. You get pretty upset about the garbage truck route and the location of the city dump. Why does it have to be here at this time when a lot of people can smell the foul odor?

You finally reach your house, prepare and eat your dinner, and call it a night. As you settle into bed, the power goes out... again. Figures, you whisper to yourself. Why do regulated power outages have to be at a time when people are at home? You drift off to sleep thinking: this day was pretty bad, but not unlike other days you've had before. If only you lived in a city that were better, and more efficient. Not just with traffic, but with everything. Electricity, parking, accident response, etc. Maybe in the future I will.

Part 2 will be coming out soon so stay tuned! 

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