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Battery powered e-bikes and e-scooters have been becoming increasingly popular worldwide, from Tel Aviv to Los Angeles, and major companies like Ford, GM and Uber and jumping on the trend. Smart Cities, eager to become cleaner, reduce traffic, and improve urban life, can find some potential in such vehicles, but their smart and efficient use depends on several factors.
The article “The future of waste management in smart and sustainable cities: A review and concept paper” was recently published in the journal of Waste Management. It builds on an integrative review of the literature, including IoT-enabled waste management practices. This study offers insights into the potential of smart cities and connected communities in facilitating waste management efforts.
Since a crucial part of Smart City technologies and solutions is based on the collection and interpretation of vast amounts of data, achieving this while protecting data privacy, which is an increasing concern, has become a major challenge.
The historical city of Grenoble, in southeastern France, is offering a potential solution.
With the technological leaps of recent years, the evolution of the smart city from limited solutions to “truly” smart cities that streamline or automate all of the challenges of urban life is now possible. The only remaining obstacle are concerns about data security and privacy. Blockchain can provide a solution to this, and offer the breakthrough which smart cities need to realize their potential.
Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) have a great potential for making passenger and freight transport greener and more efficient. Nevertheless, the introduction of ITS applications to the market remains a major challenge. Collaboration of different stakeholders is thereby key for success.
The Committee for Sydney has published a new report entitled Smart Engagement: Leveraging Technology for a More Inclusive Sydney. This report focuses on one of the core building blocks of successful smart cities – effective citizen engagement. It also provides a diverse range of case studies in how smart engagement can work in Sydney, from using traditional methods to emerging, cutting-edge technology like augmented reality (AR) technologies.
Augmented Reality (AR) technology and the market for it has matured enough for it to have the potential to play a central part in smart cities, although the big changes are expected to occur when 5G systems become widespread, since AR requires a lot of data at high speed, for users who are on the move.