New York City’s technology innovation department is working with local government to make it as smart a city as possible. They believe this concept is one that will help improve the lives of every New Yorker.

With public and private sector projects, the city is currently undergoing a digital transformation to make government more responsive, save costs, increase efficiency and better analyze what’s happening in New York. They work with cutting-edge technology to take full advantage of the potential offered by IoT and connected devices.

Singapore has a reputation for being ahead of the curve when it comes to technology, so it’s no surprise that it’s one of the smartest cities on the globe. Its Smart Nation program was launched in 2014 and involved installing many sensors around the city. These sensors will collect a massive amount of information about what citizens do every day. They can measure everything from how clean a certain area is to how crowded an event is. The government receives real-time reports on what is happening in the city.

What makes Singapore’s smart city project stand out is that this data is hosted centrally with the government rather than an individual company.

London’s Department of Technology works to ensure London is a smart city. They have several ongoing projects to support innovation and technology at all levels. One way they do this is through the Tech.London partnership, which aims to help entrepreneurs and startups.

They also have a Smart London board that regularly provides updates and recommendations on how the city can be smarter than ever. To achieve its goals, London has a Smart City Plan that includes strategies for implementing technology in a city that is expected to grow to 10 million people over the next decade.

London is currently working on key issues such as healthcare, transport and energy management.

Barcelona has a lot of initiatives that are constantly on the lists of the best smart cities. A major project the city has been working on is to have free Wi-Fi coverage throughout the city.

Nowadays, it is possible to access free WiFi almost everywhere in the city. Local governments have been working on creating a series of apps to keep citizens informed and engaged with what’s going on. Barcelona is also using Internet of Things technologies, including smart sensors to reduce energy costs and increase road safety.

With all of this in mind, it’s no wonder that Barcelona hosts some of the most exciting tech events around!

Oslo stands out among smart cities with its focus on creating a sustainable, ecological environment. This city has over 650,000 LED lights that are all connected to processing stations. These lights can intelligently adjust the amount of lighting according to current needs. But that’s not all. Oslo is also using smart number plate detectors to find a data-driven way to improve traffic congestion.

Similar to Oslo, Tokyo focuses much of its smart city policies on being energy smart. The city is working on implementing technology that will help make the city more efficient and environmentally friendly. This includes local energy storage and the use of electric vehicles. The city has a big challenge ahead as it is one of the largest cities in the world.

The system provides opportunities to improve operations and reduce costs with easy-to-generate reports, data visualizations and analytics that show how city lighting is performing.

It can manage workflows and send accurate work requests to field maintenance teams, use data to estimate when fixtures are nearing end-of-life, and schedule proactive maintenance or replacement.

With dedicated user roles and fully encrypted data streams, the software meets the highest security standards. Regular software updates ensure that the software is always up to date.

Accurate work instructions are sent directly from the system to field workers, eliminating the potential for false information and misunderstandings. Any changes made in the field are automatically tracked and incorporated, avoiding redundant data flows.

With an intuitive user interface and strict security standards, smart lighting system management is scalable to suit needs and provides complete visibility and control over the entire lighting system. Individual or group light point control provides flexibility in a single platform with the option to use licensed cellular networks and license-free RF communication architectures.

The information collected from the Lighting asset management system is stored in a local database or in the cloud. City administrators can use this data to further optimize and improve lighting operations.

In 2020, smart city developments were greatly influenced by the Covid-19 pandemic, as social distancing required more contactless interactions when accessing public services or making transactions. Public safety was the major issue and accelerated improvements in infrastructure, expansion of partnership networks and digitization of priority environments such as public transport.

For the year 2021, foundational technologies were still a part of this transformation. Meanwhile, the latest trends and technologies such as artificial intelligence, data analytics and 5G have taken center stage in this transformational journey.

Public safety continued to be the number one priority as the pandemic continued. Therefore, contactless and cashless technologies continued to focus on the digitization of public transport ticketing services through the use of bank cards, closed-loop cards, QR codes and NFC wearable technologies.

5G wireless technology was first launched in 2019, but globally it has been slowed by the technology gap in emerging countries and the perception that 4G is still working well.

Collecting and analyzing real-time consumer data is critical to staying competitive and starting the smart city transformation. The demand for data analysis is constantly increasing due to the large amounts of data accumulated by operators and municipalities and the ability to use this analysis to support business decisions and improve the public environment.

Artificial intelligence has been adopted in other business areas, for example for fraud prevention. In recent years, it has been introduced into public services in areas such as traffic control, automatic fare collection and parking automation.

In 2021, cities continued to seek best solutions and practices for smart city transformation, learning from existing implementations where open-loop technologies linked data into a single ecosystem or supported mobile QR and facial recognition technology, providing methods additional payment.

The field of development is vast and does not end with public transportation or merchant contactless payments. The technology can be implemented in other areas such as education, entertainment or the exchange economy to create a contactless, safe and accessible environment.

Protecting information and core infrastructure against any threat and malicious activity requires maintaining adequate security mechanisms in smart cities. When it comes to smart city security, there are a lot of security challenges that pertain to the underlying smart city ecosystem.

In particular, the physical hardware and software that are implemented in smart cities are made by manufacturers without proper cybersecurity testing. Using such insecure products will lead to security vulnerabilities and eventually compromise the entire ecosystem of the city. At times, it will also lead to the shutdown of vital city services that put citizens’ lives at risk.

As cities try to become smart, many of the smart city applications present a number of security and privacy issues and challenges. Thus, the smart city should be able to protect the information involved against unwanted entry, dissemination, destruction, modification and annihilation in accordance with the fundamentals of information security. Confidentiality, integrity and availability of information security fundamentals should be satisfied in every aspect of the smart city.

There is widespread concern among the general public about how companies – and the government – ​​use personal data. 79% of adults say they are at least somewhat concerned about how companies use the data they collect about them, including 36% who say they are very concerned about the issue.

Full visibility of the street lighting infrastructure can be achieved through a centralized web-based dashboard, managing the lighting remotely through a standard web browser.

The smart lighting system allows the creation of customized light groups or the management of each individual light point. Depending on the time of year, the lighting can be adjusted, the light comes on if there is an accident/movement, and zones can be set to vary the light levels in the city, and pedestrian crossings or other pedestrian areas are well lit.

Automatic fault detection alerts immediately when there is an outage or failure so that maintenance teams can be quickly deployed, reducing citizen complaints and optimizing maintenance operations.

Energy consumption and CO₂ emissions can be reduced with lighting programs and activity or presence sensors. The street lighting schedule just needs to be aligned with the time of day or year so that the street lights are only used when needed.

Connected street lights installed in the city can be controlled remotely through an intuitive dashboard that triggers light scenes or programs over a standard mobile or other network. Scene management software provides an overview of the lighting infrastructure, enabling the planning, scheduling and triggering of light scenes remotely.

The software enables the granting of role-based permissions and access rights to individuals so that they can perform clearly defined tasks through the cloud-based dashboard.

Presence sensors can be added to a light pole to detect street activity so light levels can be reduced when people and vehicles are not around late at night. This helps reduce energy consumption when the lights are not needed, but also ensures well-lit streets when people are around.

Open and secure APIs allow scene management software to be integrated with other city and IT management systems or dashboards, allowing lighting to be synchronized with other city services or activities. APIs also allow access to light control to be shared with third parties and approved software developers, who could create additional applications or services to drive innovation in citizen engagement or city operations.

Switching to LED will provide energy savings of up to 70%, and by adding smart controls, savings increase to 80%. By using sensors to detect when people or cars are present, lighting can be dimmed when the streets are empty.

They can be metered in real time or data can be collected on energy consumption based on lighting in the city. This data can be used to gain insights to create benchmarks and improvement initiatives to further drive energy efficiency that reduces CO2 emissions.

Continuous energy consumption measurement and data provide new insights that support more informed decisions to help improve operational efficiency and optimize lighting performance.

Continuous monitoring and data collection of energy consumption facilitates the achievement of sustainability goals and provides data to support the city’s sustainability programs and goals.

LED street lighting coupled with smart controls reduces energy consumption by up to 80%. Connected LED lighting enables intelligent light control and enables the collection of data for each point of light, which is then transmitted over a network and analyzed to provide new insights.

By adding presence sensors to connected street lights, energy consumption can be further reduced by using software to automatically dim light levels if no people or vehicles are detected.

Data collected from street lighting can be stored locally or in the cloud, depending on the customer’s preferences or data governance policy. The City owns the data and may share it with third parties or independent software providers.

Smart lighting makes the urban environment safe for people at night, while improving the quality of life both at night and during the day, while enabling a more harmonious existence of technology, people, flora and fauna, which cannot be made with traditional technology. Ultimately, a smart lighting infrastructure provides a ubiquitous network across a city that can be the initial backbone for smart-city services and technologies.

Smart lighting consists of dimmable light emitting diode (LED) luminaires with sensor and controller interfaces, a control system and a supporting infrastructure.

The control system is composed of lighting nodes, a communication network with one or more lighting node controllers and a human interface. Smart lighting, when adaptive lighting is implemented, can reduce lighting energy consumption by up to 50% while providing higher quality light for improved safety.

Finally, the use of smart lighting infrastructure as a starting point for smart-city devices and services is introduced. The use of surplus power available in lighting power lines is discussed, as well as the use of the controller network for additional services or data collection and transmission.

Smart lighting is available and offers significant potential benefits to cities. Smart lighting seems to be the logical starting point of any smart city plan.

Public lighting infrastructure is particularly well placed to assume the role of a platform that provides not only smart lighting but also a range of other functions and benefits to cities. Ubiquitous in cities, streetlights have a great potential for standardization and could integrate various sensors, telecommunications and technologies needed in smart cities as well because they provide access to charging.

A smart and connected lighting system is part of a local, wireless, decentralized or cloud-based network. Data is collected from sensors on poles, being installed cameras, daylight, motion or noise detection and processed to achieve optimal energy efficiency and safety operation of public lighting. The additional energy savings of smart lighting compared to LED lighting are at least 60% higher, ensuring a sustainable investment.

In general, there is a lack of knowledge among public and local governments regarding digital solutions. For citizens, the Smart Lighting system raises primary privacy and surveillance concerns, given the data that could be collected, or they believe there could be safety issues for workers due to multiple wires and devices.

City budgets are often limited, making it difficult to invest in the switch to smart lighting. The need for additional networks (internet, additional power) may result in higher expenses. Current infrastructure may be too old to accommodate smart technologies, requiring new equipment.

More technical and safety training is needed for workers, given the innovative technology, some sensors (eg noise sensors) can be difficult to install.

For all the additional functions of such an infrastructure to work as intended it is important to have uninterrupted power. However, this can be difficult in regions with frequent power problems.

Smart Lighting relies on data to address public lighting challenges.

The most visible use of Smart Lighting is obviously the automatic control of equipment. By equipping streetlights with technologies such as cameras, photocells or IoT sensors, local authorities can collect multiple data: street traffic and traffic conditions in real time.

Switching from traditional equipment to less energy-consuming equipment, such as LED lamps, generates energy savings even with constant lighting. With a smart lighting system, communities can take their energy efficiency to the next level. With intelligent street lighting control, only the necessary energy is actually consumed.

Reducing electricity consumption has a direct impact on the community’s budget. Smart lighting is precisely at the crossroads of these two problems. In addition to lowering energy bills, smart lighting helps reduce maintenance costs for public lighting equipment.

While maintenance has traditionally required the intervention of municipal employees or specialist companies, it can now be done remotely with better cost control. In addition, a Smart Lighting system facilitates the detection of equipment anomalies and, thanks to data analysis, the detection of billing anomalies, which are also sources of savings.

The reduction of the public lighting budget is directly proportional to the initial investment made by the authorities. Investing in a performing Smart Lighting system would even bring savings of 100%.

One of the major applications for smart street lighting is in Smart City. A smart city is a technologically modern urban area that uses various electronic methods, voice activation methods and sensors to collect specific data. The information obtained from that data is used to effectively manage assets, resources and services. Street lighting is the backbone of a smart city. Street lights are everywhere and so much so that we sometimes don’t even notice or recognize them, but lighting can account for 10-38% of the total energy bill in typical cities around the world.

Smart Street Light System, an intelligent street lighting control system that uses AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology to provide automated services, is one such technology. A smart street light consists of a network of street lamps that can communicate with each other and send lighting data to a central base.

The central database manages and transmits the relevant data to a secure server that captures the data and presents it in a web browser dashboard. It allows remote control of street lights while keeping track of electricity consumption in lamps and driving circuits. Monitored street lighting networks will help reduce maintenance costs as each lamp has a unique ID and can be identified.

These cost savings can also allow municipalities to expand street lighting to new areas, increasing access to lighting in low-income and other underserved communities. The main component of an intelligent street lighting system is the intelligent pole, which consists of the following three elements:

• LED/HID lamps with the highest efficiency
• IoT-based end-to-end communication to create a digitally monitored, secure and reliable network
• Adding smart sensors to monitor weather conditions, lamppost tilt, air pollution and more