SMART CITY SOLUTIONS | All Articles

The current climate crisis is having a drastic effect on the planet. While it’s easy to place the blame on rapid deforestation and unsustainable industry, one of the largest contributors to the current climate change phenomenon is much closer to home: our cities.

The first edition of CityTech RUHR, Germany’s largest international smart city startup challenge, concluded with the successful development and implementation of pilot projects by three international startups in three participating cities of the Ruhr Metropolis. Three success stories reflect the high innovation potential that can be leveraged through the collaboration between cities and startups.

Meeting those needs presents an incredibly urgent and disconcertingly novel set of challenges. So, what are cities doing beyond locking down and freezing up? What kind of systems and smart city innovations should they put in place to be more resilient?

The Covid-19 pandemic has posed similar challenges to cities and municipalities around the world. What have we learned from the Covid-19 pandemic and how can innovative solutions also be used in the post-crisis period? The international digital ideas competition #SolutionsForCities, started by the German Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community (BMI), is not only intended to find answers to all these questions. Rather, cities and municipalities are to be supported through international collaboration in identifying digital solutions to overcome their local challenges.

Partnering cities of the International Smart Cities Network (ISCN) and German cities that have been recognized as "Smart Cities Model Projects" have identified current challenges to be solved through the international ideas competition.

The Covid-19 pandemic has made a tremendous impact on people’s everyday lives. Changes to our regular routines have been coming in thick and fast, from mask-wearing protocol to social distancing etiquette. Of all these changes, how we move around and get from A to B has seen some of the most drastic changes.

Over the past few months, mobility has rapidly evolved into an entirely new beast. Faithful and reliable transport methods are being shunned in favor of new systems. Citizens are avoiding crowded trains and buses in favor of bicycles and e-scooters. As cities evolve to phase out car usage, improving air quality and the health of citizens, the Covid-19 pandemic has provided a unique opportunity to overhaul urban mobility. But will these changes be here for good?

Civic engagement is not only important for formal city planning processes, but it is at the core of digital urban transformation into smart and sustainable cities and communities. The most widely used ways of engaging citizens, town hall meetings and/or surveys (even with social media campaigns), leave citizen participation rates low and a majority of citizens in the dark about what is being done in their city.

Enabling citizens to provide opinions and feedback as well as to participate in decision making processes is the subject of this top list. Through new forms of urban governance and participation, cities and communities embrace the ability to collaborate with their citizens to co-create a better and smarter city for all.

Explore five leading citizen engagement solutions that aim to bridge the gap between local government, especially city planners, and citizens.

For the last two months, every day at 8 pm, I go out to the balcony and together with my neighbors, we clap for all of those that are in the trenches fighting against the covid-19: nurses, doctors, people working in elderly houses and hospital staff among others. This is the minimum that we, as a society, can do right now.

Unfortunately, this is perishable, and the history tell us that when a problem is over, we easily forget it. Now we have an opportunity to challenge the history: people, politicians, companies, the society, all of us we must change many things in an enduring way. We have to do it for us and for our descendants.

Smart Waste Management is one of the solutions for cities that can help us in the fight against the pandemic to reduce the infection risk and contribute to the health of residents.

With Germany's largest international smart city startup challenge, the Ruhr Metropolis - City of Cities - is calling start-ups from across the globe to apply and solve the real-world challenges of four cities: Bochum, Bottrop, Hagen and Gelsenkirchen through a paid pilot. The application deadline has been extended due to the COVID-19 pandemic until May 3, 2020. In the following paragraphs, we will look more closely on the Bottrop and Gelsenkirchen challenges.

With Germany's largest international smart city startup challenge, the Ruhr Metropolis - City of Cities - is calling start-ups from across the globe to apply and solve the real-world challenges of four cities: Bochum, Bottrop, Hagen and Gelsenkirchen through a paid pilot. The application deadline has been extended due to the COVID-19 pandemic until May 3, 2020.

Streetlights, as they are today, have been a cause of concern for how much energy they consume as well as how they have been adding to the light pollution in cities, burning brightly while no one is around. These are just a few of the concerns that some solution providers have been aiming to address with their Smart Lighting solutions. They aim to make cities feel more safe, make lights more efficient, poles multi-functional and push costs of maintenance and energy down among others in various ways.

CityTech RUHR invites startups from around the world to participate in Germany’s biggest smart city challenge. Four cities and their business partners seek innovative solutions for four different challenges and offer the opportunity to win paid pilot projects. Startups that want to participate can apply until May 3, 2020 (Deadline extended due to the COVID-19 situation) for one of the program’s challenges at: www.citytech.ruhr

As the formidable threat of cyber security looms over the majority of the world’s municipal governments, Leading Cities launches AcceliGOV. This global competition offers municipalities around the world the chance to compete for a pre-paid pilot of a globally sourced, expert-vetted cyber security solution. Interested cities may complete a brief application found at AcceliGOV.com by March 31st . AcceliGOV was launched by Leading Cities CEO, Michael Lake, at the Global Cybersecurity Forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which featured over 1,200 government officials, private sector leaders, international organizations and other key stakeholders drawn from expert communities and academia.

In less than a decade, the concept known as mobility as a service (MaaS) has captured the imagination of visionaries and innovators throughout the global transport industry. As an opportunity with potential to transform the industry and reduce dependence on car ownership, MaaS evolved from an intriguing concept to early-stage reality (at least in terms of trials, pilot projects and embryonic services).

In their eagerness to create breakthrough technologies and disruptive platforms, innovators sometimes collide with an established (and perhaps ill-suited) regulatory and policy-making process. In a previous article on e-scooters, we reported that a strategy of "permissionless innovation" enabled app-activated e-scooter startups to gain a precarious foothold in urban mobility markets. However, these startups soon discovered that safety and regulatory issues - including the lack of regulations in most situations - led to controversial relations with cities and citizens. In this article, we cover recent experiences, lessons learned and thoughts on the need for collaborative solutions. For an overview of the e-scooter market and its dynamics, read our article E-Scooters: A Passing Fad or Smart Mobility?

Electric scooters appeal to those who want to move quickly and easily through urban streets at low cost while avoiding congestion and solving first mile / last mile mobility problems. However, menacing clouds - in the form of safety, regulatory and business model issues - linger above the nascent e-scooter sharing market, raising questions about its future. A key question is whether cities can find ways for this new micro-mobility service to add value to sustainable urban mobility. In this article, we explore the e-scooter market and competitive dynamics and offer a perspective on smart city challenges. To learn about the lessons learned from the city perspective regarding the introduction of e-scooter sharing, please read our article E-Scooters: A Collision Between Innovation And Controversy.

In 2018, Leading Cities, a global nonprofit for Smart City growth and collaboration, launched AcceliCITY - a global Smart City startup competition that provides potential capital from a network of investors as well as the tools and knowledge of how to do business with cities. In this year’s edition 50 semi-finalists were selected from more than 500 applications from 43 countries. An international panel of Smart City experts judged each semi-finalist to select the 14 finalists that will gather in Boston (Sept. 30 - Oct. 4) for AcceliCITY’s Smart City Boot Camp.

bee smart city partner Leading Cities is now accepting applications for its second edition of the AcceliCITY smart city startup accelerator. Last year’s inaugural edition of the contest worked with 27 semi-finalists selected from more than 550 applications from over 40 countries.

“The goal of the AcceliCITY program is to facilitate sustainable growth, resiliency and quality-of-life improvements for cities around the world by addressing the critical needs of Smart City startups,” says Michael Lake, President and CEO of Leading Cities. “These startups are developing the innovative solutions to municipal challenges in the 21st century.”.

AcceliCITY offers the chance for startups to secure what they need most - paid projects to build their portfolio and validate their solutions. This edition will focus on the challenges of smart water and smart mobility through pioneering partnerships with the cities of New Bedford, Massachusetts and Mount Pearl, Canada. In addition, all applicants will compete to be selected for fast-tracking to the Urban Resilience Challenge. Those selected will automatically advance to the semi-finalist stage and compete for a 1st Place prize of $75,000 and 2nd Place prize of $25,000.

If the science fiction writers of the 1950s had been right, most of us today would travel around in flying cars and pneumatic trains. We would commute to work on high-speed moving sidewalks and zip across town in horizontal elevators. For short hops, we would wear personal jet packs or anti-gravity belts. Well, here we are in the early 21st century and we’re still waiting for buses, stuck in traffic jams and trying to walk across busy streets without being hit by a cab. Transportation has changed, but not in the ways predicted by science fiction. Many of the most important changes have been invisible.

When it comes to public safety, smart city leaders recognize the importance of engaging with citizens and encouraging them to report safety problems. In this article, we present a perspective on public safety — and focus on Vizsafe, a U.S. startup firm which discovered opportunities to incentivize citizens and improve safety by creating a platform which connects the power of crowdsourcing and smartphone technologies with a blockchain-based rewards system.

Smart education is a key ingredient in smart city development. Strengths in basic education, advanced training and certification, universities and community colleges, e-learning infrastructure, lifelong learning and innovation in education technologies are all part of what defines a smart city. "For the citizens of a smart city to thrive, we must first place education at its center," according to Dr. I-Chang Tsai, Vice President and Director General of Digital Education, Institute for Information Industry in Taiwan. Smart cities recognize the need for "education programs producing graduates with modern knowledge, practical skills and collaborative attitudes."

When we think of smart cities, we tend to think in futuristic terms. We often use the language and iconography of futurism to express our visions of what a smart city should look like. But we should also look to the past for lessons and examples of how previous generations handled the challenges of planning and developing urban spaces.

Urban innovators with smart city aspirations rely on university knowledge and resources when addressing complex issues. Through access to research and thought leadership on urban challenges, smart cities benefit from partnerships with universities.

The Changing Face of Urban Innovation

When contemplating the need for urban improvement, cities once looked for efficiency gains, cost savings, and incremental, low-risk innovation to enhance local government operations. Today, urban residents demand much more from city leaders. Wicked urban problems such as homelessness, lack of affordable housing, pollution, congestion, inequality, social and digital exclusion, and environmental threats require bold thinking and a new paradigm in public sector innovation - made possible through collaboration with universities. 

Urban mobility is described as the lifeblood of modern cities, a critical economic factor, and a facilitator of smart, sustainable development. Planning a smart city that delivers effective and equitable urban mobility solutions is one of the most pressing problems for cities throughout the world. In this article — the first in a planned series — we provide a perspective on urban mobility challenges and examples of smart urban mobility solutions.

At Smart City Expo World Congress, Barcelona City Council and the City of New York have issued a call for innovative technologies and tools to help make housing more affordable. This call now draws to an end: the extended deadline for submitting proposals is February 10, 2019. Take the last chance to apply!

Why an affordable housing challenge?

In cities around the world, affordable housing represents one of the biggest challenges that undermines social inclusion, equality, health and well-being, as well as sustainability.

Cities are both a key enabler of productivity and economic development, and essential to the social and political wellbeing of individuals and society, as the place that most people now call ‘home’.

However, there are many problems in cities that are inhibiting economic growth and social and environmental justice and equality. Traffic congestion is a huge problem worldwide and costs national economies billions of pounds each year. In the UK alone, traffic cost the economy £31bn in 2016. Poor housing conditions, leading to greater need for healthcare services, also put a huge strain not only on people’s lives but also on local and national healthcare systems. Growing populations and changing demographics - for example, an increasingly youthful population in many African cities, and an increasingly ageing population in much of Europe - is already beginning to put a lot of strain on public services and the built environment. The global housing crisis is just one expression of this.

The smart city concept is one reaction to the growing challenges that urban centers face - from environmental degradation, to increasing economic inequalities, to growing populations that overstrain and exhaust social and physical infrastructure - as it aims to improve the operational, service and energy efficiency of cities and render them better places to live for all.

Earlier this year, bee smart city partner Leading Cities, a global network for Smart City growth and collaboration, has launched a global Smart City startup accelerator program that provides potential capital from a network of investors as well as the tools and knowledge of how to do business with cities. In this year’s edition 27 semi-finalists have been selected from more than 550 applications from over 40 countries. From this global pack of urban innovators, three startups emerged as AcceliCITY winners - one for each track of the AcceliCITY program (clean energy, city visualization and general tracks).

The world of urban mobility is changing fast, and cities are grappling with the impact on safety. Growth in urban populations, combined with more cars, trucks and public transport vehicles (e.g. increasing last mile delivery) sharing crowded streets with vulnerable road users (pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists), makes the task of providing safe mobility a complex challenge. The task is further complicated by unsafe driving behavior, demand for multimode transport options, the need for bicycle-friendly streets and the uncertain future of autonomous vehicles.

Road fatalities are increasing in many cities and comprised 37 percent of European road fatalities in 2017. Taking steps to improve the safety of urban mobility fosters quality of life and yields opportunities to deliver transport sustainability. This article provides a perspective on policies and innovation regarding urban mobility safety solutions for smart cities.

Smart city strategy, now moving into its ‘fourth generation’, is today increasingly focused on collaboratively determining community’s needs before implementing infrastructural and/or technological changes. With community empowerment at the forefront of smart city development, what ‘smartness’ means when it comes to building must be defined with (rather than for) the community in order to produce buildings that genuinely enable a higher quality of life and engender more sustainable lifestyles.

The smart city is also as much centered around stimulating cooperation as sustainability: this means capitalizing on the most innovative ‘smart’ technologies and processes to ensure that new infrastructure is built not only in the most collaborative, but also the most resource-efficient way too.

A recurring theme in architecture and construction engineering is that of "sick buildings". In our eagerness to control all the parameters and internal and external conditions of our constructions, humanity has tended, increasingly, to make hermetic buildings, replete with electrical and electronic installations that give off electromagnetic waves and ions. Especially in offices we often find ourselves with spaces that are too cold and with a highly charged environment.

Here we will address how to alleviate the excess of electromagnetic charge and the lack of humidity in an environment, with the installation of Canadian or Provencal Wells, for the promotion of sustainable architecture.

Innovation in last mile freight and parcel delivery solutions could yield significant benefits for cities by reducing traffic congestion in urban centers, improving public health by lessening greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and contributing to the success of sustainable urban economies.

What is Last Mile Delivery?

From a manufacturer's plant or warehouse or a supplier or retailer location, the last mile of delivery is the final stage in the shipping process, culminating with arrival of a package or goods at a customer's destination.

Last-mile delivery and associated services are provided by established freight transport companies, courier firms, independent drivers and couriers, click-and-collect retailers, self-service parcel lockers, and postal service destination hubs. Delivery vehicles in the last mile include diesel and gas-powered trucks and vans, electric trucks, pushcarts, pedal carts, bicycles and robotic vehicles (in pilot projects). Due to the steady growth of e-commerce, the number of delivery vehicles and the volume of deliveries and locations have dramatically increased. In addition, the market for urban delivery services is undergoing an evolution with independent drivers and new entrants competing with traditional courier firms.

Boston-based Leading Cities has announced AcceliCITY, a global competition providing Smart City startups with access to international clients, capital from a global network of Smart City educated investors, and tools and knowledge in doing business with cities. The program bridges the gap between startups, cities, and businesses by providing select startups with access to Leading Cities’ proven track record of successful policy implementation, Smart City tools, and broad global network. bee smart city partners with AcceliCITY and Leading Cities to leverage its expertise and network to support Smart City startups.

Leading Cities and several partnering organizations - among them bee smart city - empower the AcceliCITY program to lower the cost of innovation for startups, cities, and corporations by streamlining the innovation and sales cycles for Smart City solutions. All partners provide access to an international network of mentors, investors, and decision-makers in city governments.

The international conference “Earth Observation & Copernicus Technologies and Solutions for User Applications“ will take place on April 19, 2018 in Bochum, Germany. You are cordially invited to take part. It will be held at the premises of the University of Applied Sciences Georg Agricola. The event is free of charge.

The conference will enable knowledge transfer between technology experts, service providers and manufacturers as well as users from selected application fields. In thematic workshops participants can exchange ideas on technology trends and project ideas, identify market demands and raise awareness towards the importance of Earth Observation and Copernicus technologies and their potential.

Open data could help to accelerate the development of smart cities by connecting the people most capable of creating smart city solutions with the data needed to generate and support them.

What is Open Data?

An overwhelming amount of data is being generated by both public and private concerns on an ongoing basis. This data is stored beyond the reach of most people, secured in government or proprietary databases or on individual electronic devices. The types and the depth of this data is growing as new and increasingly technological solutions are implemented to solve the problems of the governments, businesses, and private citizens of smart cities.

The potential advantages of data collection on such a scale are beyond question. Data collection is the most laborious part of any investigation, and yet the majority of global data is going largely unseen and unused. Limiting the number of people who can access it necessarily limits the number of problems to which it can be applied and, in most cases, prevents access to the people best able to apply it.

The solution to this is to make the data publicly available via an open government approach: open data.

On the 1st of November,  Sigfox's exclusive network operator Thinxtra showcased the start of its territory-wide low-power wide-area (LPWA) IoT network in Hong Kong, providing cost-effective IoT (Internet of Things) connectivity for the city.

Cost-Effective LPWA Network provides IoT Connectivity

Until March 2018, 100 Sigfox base stations are expected to be installed throughout Hong Kong to provide long-range, low-bandwidth, low-power connectivity for businesses, research institutions, and government organizations to seize opportunities of the rise of IoT.

The evolution of smart cities has shifted from technology-centered approaches via government-led strategies to a human-centric focus. We have discussed this recently in our article Towards a new paradigm of the smart city.

Considering the benefits of a human-centric approach, the question is how a city can tap into the collective intelligence of citizens, entrepreneurs, businesses or other organizations to accelerate the development of a more livable and prosperous city. Collective intelligence can be considered as a key success factor for a smart city (see A review of becoming a smart city).

The role of smart lighting solutions in the intelligent transformation of cities and buildings has gained momentum in the past years. This development will continue in the coming years based on increased connectivity and industrial internet of things (IIoT) solutions becoming a key element in most smart city strategies around the globe.

The opportunities that cities can seize with the installation of smart lighting solutions go far beyond value creation through energy (cost) and maintenance savings (which are huge considering that as much as 40 percent of a city’s energy budget is consumed by street lighting and new efficient lighting can save up to 50% of these costs as a result of increased energy efficiency) or the improvement of the environmental impact.

A growing number of cities around the globe are testing smart waste management solutions to create higher efficiency in terms of resources and costs associated with keeping their cities clean.

While equipping the bins of private households with latest sensor technology is tested only by a few cities (like Santander in Spain or Montreal in Canada), several cities start in public spaces with implementing smart waste management solutions.

The installation of smart solar-powered compacting bins can be observed in a growing number of cities (Amsterdam, Atlanta, London, Melbourne, Philadelphia, and others).

Self-powered smart urban street furniture can help cities and communities to increase the attractivity of public spaces by providing public services, information, and connectivity, while at the same time enabling the collection of valuable data for optimizing processes and reducing costs.

Cities are increasingly adopting smart street furniture solutions

Whether we talk about digital signs, smart benches or even fully-integrated smart bus stops – there are a lot of new products available in terms of smart urban street furniture. A growing number of cities and communities throughout the world are adopting these self-powered products to make life easier for citizens and visitors and to optimize the management of public infrastructure or to provide connectivity such as free WiFi.