A funding of €15 million from the EC’s Horizon 2020 programme along with €17 million from the Estonian Government was obtained for Smart City Research in Helsinki and Tallinn. This will enable R&D teams to test and implement smart city strategies with the eventual goal of creating cross-border smart city initiatives along the EU.
The development of Smart Cities around the world comes with several daunting challenges, one of which is the efficient maintenance of the city’s underlying systems of interconnected networks. However, enterprise networks can offer a useful parallel.
While a lot of buzz in smart cities is about the impressive, cutting-edge technology, the crucial component which makes them smart should be the emphasis on their citizens. The technology should be invisible, seamlessly embedded in the environment to serve real human needs. If the sole focus of a smart city is the technology, then the project is doomed to fail.
Universities around the world, with the US leading the way, are taking notice of smart city developments and applying many of the same solutions. University campuses are ideal for this, as, in effect, they are mini metropolises of their own, with their own shops, roads, transport, residences, banks, and tens of thousands of visitors every day.
The rapid growth of cities around the world poses a variety of challenges. One of these is the additional space needed to store cars. Improved parking technologies, such as robotic parking, can provide an answer. Such solutions are already being implemented.
The cutting edge technological innovations which make smart cities what they are require sizeable economic investments on behalf of the city, region or country. As with all investments, if smart city initiatives do not return any tangible value, they represent money going down the drain. With the way economies work, technological development or benefits to citizens might not be enough to sustain the continuous advancement of smart cities if they come at a great financial loss. Fortunately, the successful implementation of smart city initiatives comes with many economic benefits.
5G represents one of the hottest new developments in technology and will soon start to be implemented around the world, reaching download speeds of 4.5 GB per second and data transmission speeds of 1.4 GB per second. These speeds are highly anticipated by private users, but they also bring major benefits for smart cities, including the field of traffic safety.