Smart city what. The Smart City concept is characterized by three basic parameters

Smart city - its components and characteristics

More than half of the world's population now lives in cities. According to statistics, in 2009 the number of urban and rural populations of the planet equaled, in developed countries this milestone was passed much earlier. Today, the share of the urban population in them is on average 75%. Over the next decades, the transition from predominantly rural to predominantly urban settlements is likely to not only continue, but also increase. new strength(See Fig. 1.). "If the 19th century was the century of empires, and the 20th century the century of nation states, then the 21st century will be the age of cities," said Jerry Mooney, vice president of IBM Smart City. - Most cities face the same problems. This is the constant growth of the population, the aging of urban infrastructure and the growth of costs when necessary to minimize them.

Rice. 1. Increasing share of urban population in the world

Even now, the traditional forms of management of urban and communal services have practically exhausted themselves and do not satisfy modern requirements to logistics, safety and ecology. In the near future, when urban population reaches 85%, we can expect a total collapse of infrastructure and utilities.

An attempt to solve the whole complex of these problems was the creation of the concept of "smart city" ("smart city"). It is aimed at ensuring the modern quality of life of people through the use of innovative technologies, which provide for the economical, environmentally friendly and safe use of urban life systems. At the same time, various factors of urban development are combined into a single system with the help of advanced information and communication technologies.

The concept of "smart city" that has become established in Russia is not an exact translation of the English term "smart city". AT English language"smart" is a collective concept, besides the mind, it also means beauty, convenience, speed. All these values ​​equally characterize the concept of "smart city".

In practice, there are 8 main components of a "smart city":

1. Energy: automated smart grid and flexible distribution system; intelligent accounting system and demand regulation; integration of renewable types of energy; software and hardware complex for managing an intelligent power grid, energy-efficient buildings and structures.
2. Water supply: automated water intake, water distribution, wastewater disposal and leak detection; regulation of rain runoff and flood waters in the city; intelligent accounting system and demand regulation; software and hardware complex for water supply management.
3. Transport: control of traffic flows and quality of road surface; collection of tolls for the use of roads; infrastructure of charging stations for electric vehicles; software and hardware control complex road traffic and public transport.
4. Security: video surveillance systems, video recording and physical security of infrastructure facilities; systems for providing calls to emergency operational services; warning systems; software and hardware complex for security systems management.
5. Services: e-government, education, healthcare and tourism.
6. Integration: a single information space of a smart city that aggregates information from urban infrastructure facilities, management systems and residents.
7. Government: decision support systems, analysis and forecasting, incident management, provision of state and municipal services in in electronic format, publications of open data.
8. Residents: users of infrastructure facilities and information services; information providers in the "feedback" mode.

Rice. 2. Components of a "smart city"

On the this moment there are not so many real implementations of the smart city concept; similar projects are being implemented in some major cities around the world, such as Vienna, Barcelona, ​​New York, Tokyo, Shanghai and Amsterdam. In addition, "smart cities" are being created from scratch, the leader here is the city of Songdo built in South Korea.

Several such projects have been announced in Russia - Skolkovo, Innopolis, SMART City Kazan. Whether they will be successful will become clear only in 5-10 years. Their implementation requires huge funds - tens of billions of dollars, which will be returned only after the construction is completed. On the other hand, the informatization of existing Russian megacities is already yielding real results.

For example, the Safe City project is being successfully implemented in Moscow and Kazan. 137,000 video cameras have been installed in Moscow, with the help of modern analytical tools, automated situational analysis of video information flows is carried out, and, if necessary, the relevant services are connected. For example, if a person is standing very close to the edge of the platform in the subway, the video camera detects this and displays the image on the monitor of the policeman of this station.

Another element of the "smart city" implemented in Moscow is an intelligent transport system. Throughout the city there are 6.5 thousand sensors that measure the density of the traffic flow in various parts of the streets. All information is collected in one data center, and depending on the situation, decisions are made to control traffic lights, to limit speed on certain sections of the road at certain times of the day, etc. In the long term, based on the data obtained, a deeper reorganization of traffic will be planned: which streets should be made one-way, which lanes should be added. This system has been operating for several years and is one of the most advanced in the world.

Different cities have different priority goals and objectives, but all smart cities have 3 things in common:

1. Availability of secure ICT infrastructure. It is of paramount importance for the successful delivery of new services in smart cities and for preparing for the future demand for these new services. On the one hand, an infrastructure should be created that guarantees residents access to information services at any time and anywhere in the metropolis, on the other hand, situational and information centers should be created in the areas listed above (components of the "smart city"). The main tasks of such centers are to ensure the integration various systems and the provision of certain information services depending on the category of users. The experience of our company in this area suggests that it is not enough just to provide the user with access to information, it is necessary to ensure the convenience of using this data. For example, when creating a situational center for a large fuel and energy company, we provided the display of operational events, critical infrastructure facilities and the area of ​​influence of weather phenomena on one interactive map of variable scale. This made it possible to minimize cases of untimely response to emergencies due to operator errors. Read more about the nuances of creating and operating situational centers in the article “Company Think Tank”.

2. The city should have a clearly structured and integrated management system. Numerous smart city systems will only work together when strict observance uniform standards. It is important to have effective management and analytical tools in order to calculate possible negative and positive trends as accurately as possible. It is almost impossible to do without Business Intelligence (BI) tools here. The need for them is especially acute in the field of security, where the life and health of people often depend on the correct interpretation of data. Moreover, judging by the feedback from users of the systems we have implemented, both operational monitoring and analysis of historical data are equally important to identify and suppress negative trends in the work of law enforcement agencies. We talk more about BI-systems on guard of public safety in the article "Analytical systems for law enforcement agencies".

A smart city should have smart users. ICTs are useless in the absence of competent users who can interact with intelligent services. " smart city” should not only expand access to “smart” devices for all categories of the population (with different income levels, for different age groups), but also provide training to work with them. By and large, "smart users" include people who create the content of information services. Moreover, the larger the solution is being implemented, the more users will have to be trained at a time, respectively, the more costly this process will be. Our company, due to the specifics of the implemented solutions, has repeatedly faced mass user training. A kind of record for us was the training of one and a half thousand employees of law enforcement agencies to work with the analytical system, and in the shortest possible time - in 2 weeks. As a result, most of them were able to immediately use the full set functionality solutions. Our experience with user training allows us to draw several conclusions:

1. Even the smartest user is much more willing to learn "in the classroom" than independently - according to the user's guide. This does not detract from the value of the latter, but for a “quick win” it is in-person training that is needed.
2. A smart user likes to ask smart questions and get smart answers quickly.
3. Communication with smart users during the training process allows you to collect requirements for finalizing the user manual and the system as a whole. In the case described above, mass communication with users allowed as soon as possible improve the functionality of the system.

The transformation of industrial cities into "smart" ones is a global trend, as well as a real prospect for many Russian cities. At the same time, the reorientation in the development of urban agglomerations involves a radical restructuring of the municipal management system, including a change in goals and objectives, as well as indicators of efficiency and effectiveness.

Home driving force there is an active participation of citizens in the life of the city and its management using intellectual information systems. Now, when designing an IS, the end users are often “all of us”, which makes Additional requirements to functional components and user interface. Here it is appropriate to recall the words of Jonathan Rez from the University of New South Wales, quoted by The Guardian: “Architects planning the cities of the future should take psychologists and ethnographers into their team. After all, what is a city, if not people?

- You said that the city is strength, but here everyone is weak ...
The city is an evil force. The strong ones come, they become weak, the city takes away the power... So you are gone!
k / f "Brother"

There is nothing unusual for us in a “smart phone”, “smart vacuum cleaner”, “smart car”, “smart home”: smartphones and robotic vacuum cleaners have already become an integral part of our daily lives, residential building automation systems are becoming increasingly popular, actively being development of unmanned vehicles.

The process of "smart-ization" of everything and everything around us like a snowball is picking up and picking up speed, increasing in volume. And with a high degree of confidence, we can say that the next link in this chain will be a "smart city", because almost all large agglomerations in one way or another think about automating urban management processes.

I think it's time to sort out the topic on the shelves :)

Fairy tale city, dream city

What is a “smart city”, or, in the language of Shakespeare, a Smart city? In fact, this is a universal integrated information support system that performs two main functions:

– provides key information to all levels of city executive power;
- provides feedback interfaces through which the executive power can influence certain areas of urban life that fall within its area of ​​responsibility.

What is its use?

Firstly, the implementation of this concept unequivocally improves the quality of life of the population of the region, or, as it has become fashionable to call it now, life quality experience.

Secondly, it is a reduction in the cost of operating infrastructure by automating routine processes for managing the urban economy and creating means of objective control over the work of city services. In the current tough economic conditions, accompanied by a reduction in the amount of money, including in the housing and utilities sector, the optimization of current processes is perhaps the most popular solution.

But let's tear off the beautiful packaging and see what is hidden under the "Smart city" label.

key link"smart city" is a kind of operational center that accumulates information from downstream systems and is a high-level aggregator of control actions.

The next level behind the center console – level of specific areas of urban economy, each of which has its own tasks and performance indicators with its own specifics. And in this regard, each such area is controlled by a separate application. For example, the "smart city lighting management" application, which allows you to set a general policy for city lighting management from a central console and optimize electricity costs and operational support for lighting. Or a “smart management of housing and communal services” system that monitors the state of various sections of the housing and communal services and can effectively respond to failures in its individual parts, as well as predict potential problems based on the analysis of data collected from sensors (for example, somewhere on the highway there is pressure drop: most likely, there is a leak in one of the areas, and the control system is designed to help localize and eliminate the damage before it leads to an accident).

All these separate systems (“smart light”, “smart housing and communal services”, “smart traffic control systems”, “smart buildings”, “smart medicine”, etc.) are brought together into a single central city management console - a kind of “urban brain” , which processes the received information: filters, sorts, aggregates and analyzes. The results of this processing are displayed on a citywide dashboard that reflects the current state of city systems - a kind of control panel for the city boss.

If there are any problems on the central panel, then the responsible persons can go to a specific management system for the urban area directly from the panel and quickly understand the details of what is happening, take adequate measures.

City as a service

In addition to monitoring urban systems and communications, the smart city is designed to change the better side Another key aspect of urban life is the process of interaction between the government and the citizen. If earlier each area of ​​the urban economy was practically sovereign and managed relatively independently of the others (with its own standards, rules, procedures), then the “smart city” in its ideal implementation should provide citizens with access to city services through a single interface to which they would be applicable general rules interactions with clear quality indicators and clear operating principles. In fact, this should be the implementation of the idea "City as a Service", giving the citizen the fastest and most convenient way feedback with urban infrastructure. "Integrated city government" if you will.

Technological basis
Naturally, to bring this concept to life, a number of technologies and solutions built on the basis of these technologies are needed to implement a "smart city" from a technical point of view.

Can be distinguished four basic elements in the technological structure of the "smart city", namely:

– internet of things, the technological concept of which allows you to collect the necessary information from objects and provides feedback with them;
– data infrastructure linking applications with urban infrastructure facilities;
– data analysis systems to extract from a large amount of data useful information;
– system of aggregation and unification of data designed to streamline and synchronize huge data streams.

As for the functions of the Internet of things and the data transmission infrastructure, everything is more or less clear, but we will say separately about the presence of data processing platforms in the described technological basis.

Obviously, the information flow in smart city systems is huge and most of the information is actually duplicated, if not not valuable at all. And data management systems play a crucial role: you need to correctly filter and cluster data, analyze and identify dependencies - the correctness of the forecast and the accuracy of the reaction to emerging events depend on this.

Perhaps it would be fair to say that it is in these systems that the “mind of a smart city”, its “think tank”, is contained. And of course, a "smart city" is impossible without "smart people" - experts with a sufficient level of knowledge and skills to effectively use the systems.

Attention, question!

We announce a break. Break for the heading "A minute of tricky questions." And the winner of the rubric today is the question “What is the basis for the hypothesis about the growth in popularity of smart city technology in the near future?”.

Thanks for the question. To date, two global processes are clearly visible, conducive to the spread of "smart cities".

The first of them is urban population growth with all the ensuing consequences. Today, more than 60% of the world's population lives in cities, and the trend towards an increase in the number of people in cities continues. For example, in terms of population, Moscow is about three of Finland and about one and a half of the Czech Republic. At the same time, cities today create up to 70% of the gross world product, i.e., in other words, up to 70% of the world economy is located in cities. It is hardly possible to effectively manage such a huge farm without the use of high-tech tools. Therefore, today all large agglomerations are implementing the Smart city concept. With different levels of readiness, there are examples of projects for building "smart cities" in all parts of the world without exception.

Process two, perhaps even more important than the first, – search for new sources of income at the next stage of technological development. In essence, the introduction of a smart city is a large and profitable business. According to the classic BCG (Boston Consulting Group) matrix, the development of the “smart cities” niche is the launch of a new “cash cow” on the market, which in the next few years will bring big profits to the IT industry.

According to various estimates, by 2020 this market will be about one and a half trillion dollars. Moreover, the monetization of the "smart city" can go in a variety of ways: there is still no clear model by which the market works. However, whatever one may say, one and a half trillion is a lot of money, and many want to compete for it.

What are we waiting for?!

Despite the promise of the solution, there are a number of reasons that prevent the explosive development of "smart cities". And Huawei is interested in overcoming these obstacles, as we see the future in the development of smart cities.

One of these reasons is the legacy of old systems with disparate data interfaces and old protocols that are not clear how to integrate with each other. Such networks are slow, have many security problems, and a whole bunch of other shortcomings. And there are two solutions: either cut out the old systems and replace them with new ones (but this is expensive and not always possible), or invent some “magic piece of iron” that “wow!” and collect the necessary data from heterogeneous interfaces, normalize them and transfer them to a higher platform.

Huawei went the second way. We have developed a universal gateway with a large number of wired and wireless interfaces that does the job of collecting and normalizing data from heterogeneous sources. At the current level of technological development, without such a universal gateway, building a data collection infrastructure in a smart city is comparable to a miracle. Either the network will be very complex and multiply redundant, or it will not collect all the necessary data.

So what is universal gateway from Huawei? In fact, this is the infrastructural basis of the network in the "smart city" - an IoT router made in an industrial case and designed to work outdoors, protected from the effects of adverse weather conditions.

The key concept here is IoT. This gateway integrates support for special industrial data transfer interfaces (PLC, DI / DO, etc.), which are more typical for SCADA systems than for telecommunications infrastructure. In addition, it implements a full stack of standard network protocols and network protection systems (a built-in firewall), so we can say without a twinge of conscience that this is a full-fledged router.

Deploying a smart city network infrastructure based on such gateways is becoming a fairly typical and understandable task.

Another reason that is a "stopper" for the development of "smart cities" is the lack of a platform capable of working with truly big data. The information flow of a "smart city" is very demanding on the performance of systems that process this information.
Huawei can answer this problem with Fusion Insight.

Fusion Insight is implemented on the basis of Hadoop, based on the Fusion Sphere (OpenStack) cloud platform, Huawei OceanStor storage system and X86-based computers.

We see great prospects for the development of smart city technologies and growth in market volumes. That is why part of Huawei's development in the near future will be aimed at supporting the popularization of Smart City technologies and technical support for the development of these technologies.

Tags:

• smart city
• technology
• infrastructure

Faced with the concept of "smart city", many people begin to imagine futuristic panoramas described in various stories by science fiction writers: hovering cars, robots, lasers, holographic objects... But what really makes a city "smart"? What technologies are used for this today?

What is a "smart city"?

What is a "smart city"?

A smart city, also known as an "intellectual city", "digital city" is a concept on which a number of specialists have different points of view. So far, their opinions agree on only one thing: it is wrong to define a smart city only as an area saturated with technology. Technologies in this case are rather a means to achieve a universal goal - the formation of a comfortable urban environment. And the "mind" of the city is, first of all, a dialogue with the local population and the formation of a joint future in accordance with their aspirations, as well as the way they act. That is, a "smart city" is a city that uses high technology to communicate in order to productively use the available resources to improve living standards, reduce environmental damage, support innovation, as well as rational use of energy and save costs. . An example here is the openness of the government, the high degree of involvement of citizens in management processes, the feasibility of development, the ubiquitous availability of the Internet, spaces for cyclists, the availability of city on-line services, etc.

What makes a smart city work?

Ambitious projects are being launched in a number of countries to develop modern urban infrastructure based on the use of modern technologies. A smart city must necessarily have a qualified managerial and analytical resource in order to predict possible negative trends as accurately as possible. To eliminate the shortcomings of modern cities, new IT systems are produced and tested, which use Big Data analytics (data arrays about the citizens of the city), complex computer modeling, apply the results of the latest scientific research in sociology and human behavior. Therefore, in smart city projects, it is important to take into account a variety of approaches - from the study of human behavior to the management of resources and infrastructure. At its core, this is a network of intertwined mechanisms, and information and communication technologies make it possible to visualize their interaction, manage current flows that cover not only urban structures of various levels, but also the suburbs, and in some cases even other cities. From the position of ICT, general optimization in various fields, the balance of material resources, which include positions from the city budget to food and waste, as well as intangible ones - urban population, energy, information.

Where was this technology first used?

The idea for Smart City was born in the Spanish seaside city of Santander, after the European Union chose this place as a pilot project for the implementation of smart city concepts. Even 6 years ago, more than twelve thousand sensors were installed in the center of Santander, which diagnose, if not everything, then definitely a lot: the amount of garbage in the tanks, free parking spaces, the ratio of cars and pedestrians. What's more, sensors on the policemen's cars measure the degree of air pollution. Among other things, traffic light control was introduced. For example, a sound sensor at a particular traffic light detects the siren of a fire truck or an ambulance, and then sends signals to other traffic lights and they all adjust their work in order to clear the road faster in remote areas. Economic difficulties in Spain served as a kind of motivation for the formation of a smart city: for example, thanks to sensors, the cost of street lighting has decreased. Automatic control of the fullness of the garbage cans allowed the authorities to reduce energy costs, since the garbage was subsequently removed more quickly. A certain array of data eventually became available to both residents of the city and tourists thanks to the developed mobile application. Thus, we can see that with the spread of this kind of technology, the city is becoming smarter, it is getting in touch, residents have an idea of ​​how it functions and plan their daily schedule according to the existing system. 11 million euros were spent on the equipment of Santander.

What other examples of "smart city" exist in the world?

In 2014, Copenhagen launched a massive project that will rebuild the city into a unitary system through the use of a range of technologies and management solutions. The system is already tuned to save energy, improve city safety and reduce pollution. environment. Smart cities are also called Helsinki, Vancouver, Vienna, Singapore, New York, Tokyo, Seoul, Amsterdam, Lyon. Following the example of its more developed counterparts, the City of Bogota has boosted its image by clearing out slums and lawbreakers to become one of the emerging green cities. Now it is one of the most environmentally developed cities in Latin America: the Colombian capital has implemented a "smart" public transportation system, tens of kilometers of bike paths and more than a thousand urban green crops. Thus, the quality of air and water in the city has significantly improved, and the trade in natural resources has also been completed.

Are smart cities developing in Russia?

Some Russian cities are already experimenting with the introduction of "smart" technologies. First of all, this affects large metropolitan areas, whose budgets allow the use of individual services in practice. For example, in Moscow, interactive services are already actively used in the sphere of housing and communal services and transport. Major development projects in the field of security and sound management of urban utilities have started in St. Petersburg and Kazan. The introduction of "smart" technologies in Russian cities is carried out by the largest international IT companies, such as IBM, Cisco and a number of others. In particular, the “Smart and Safe City of Kazan” project being implemented by Cisco provides for a unified city wifi network and video surveillance, control of the urban environment and the ecological situation, an intelligent transport system - a complex of traffic flow sensors, a processing center and controlled traffic lights. It is assumed that as a result of the implementation of the project, the costs in the housing and communal services sector will decrease by 80%, for street lighting - by 40% and 50%, and the efficiency of using public transport will increase.

Smart city (tracing paper from English smart city) is interconnected system communication and information technologies with the Internet of things (IoT), which simplifies the management of the internal processes of the city and improves the standard of living of the population.

The smart city performs two important tasks:

• collection and transmission of data to management representatives;
• establishing feedback between the administration and citizens, improving the environment.

According to a study by McKinsey, by 2020 the number of smart cities on the entire planet will increase to 600.

The advantages of a smart city are to increase the standard of living of citizens and to reduce the costs of work processes by automating activities that do not require the use of analytical skills.

The term "smart city" was introduced relatively recently, and there is still no unambiguous interpretation of this concept. However, experts agreed that the main source of smart city management is population data.

Digital cities are constantly improving their functions through continuous processing and updating of information. Integrated sensors collect information received from residents of the city and using electronic devices. After analyzing the collected data, optimization takes place, problem solving inefficiency.

Components of the smart city system:

• Video surveillance and photo fixation;
• Intelligent transport systems (ITS);
• Unified emergency call system (example - "System-112" in Russia);
• Unified dispatch service and situational centers;
• Internet of Things (IoT);
• Fifth generation of mobile communications (5G).

These information collection and analysis tools are used to improve the functioning of transport interchanges, medicine, industry and other areas that form the digital city model.

In December 2017, the staff of the Research Institute of Technology and Communication identified seven main areas of digital settlement.

Smart city features

• Smart economy:
  • Formation of a favorable environment for innovation activities, including for the development of information and communication technologies;
  • Established online hotel booking system.
• Smart control:
  • Well-established functioning of the communication system between the city residents and representatives of the executive branch, information openness of the city administration;
  • The activity of citizens in the management of the city;
  • Relevance of strategic planning documentation;
  • High attendance of the official websites of the city administration.
• Smart Finance:
  • Availability of ATMs;
  • Transparency of public tenders;
  • Fare payment system by bank transfer.

• Smart Infrastructure:
  • Well-established work of Internet services for calling and paying for a taxi;
  • The ability to monitor traffic online;
  • Availability of a network of filling stations for electric vehicles;
  • Car sharing service.
• Smart Residents:
  • Activity and number of users of the World Wide Web;
  • Application of electronic cards of students;
  • Availability of labor market data.
• Smart Environment:
  • Developed environmental safety monitoring system;
  • Participation of citizens and administration in eliminating the consequences of unauthorized waste disposal.
• Smart technologies:
  • Availability of free Wi-Fi points, incl. in public transport;
  • Operation of mobile broadband networks.

Smart cities include Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Copenhagen, Singapore, Stockholm, Zurich.

Original and futuristic smart city project - Masdar settlement on the territory of the United Arab Emirates. The full implementation of the program will be carried out only by 2030, but the first houses and basic elements of the city's infrastructure will appear as early as 2018. The number of pioneer residents will be 7,000 people.

As planned by the designers, Masdar should become completely autonomous and self-sufficient and accommodate up to 100 thousand inhabitants. Energy for the maintenance and operation of urban systems will be drawn from renewable sources - the sun, wind and water.

Despite the hot climate of the UAE, inside Masdar they plan to maintain a comfortable temperature for humans. The streets of the city are designed taking into account the position of the sun and the direction of the prevailing winds. Electric self-driving cars will run around the settlement, while conventional vehicles will not be allowed to drive closer than two miles to the city - this is a solution to reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

Smart city technologies will reduce the amount of water consumed through the use of smart meters, and the waste liquid will be recycled for watering plants. The plan of the designers is to build a waste processing plant, where the townspeople will work: sort waste, throwing each type into the appropriate containers.

Why smart cities are the future?

Now all over the world there are not so many smart cities in the global ratio, while the creation of a smart city is a labor-intensive process that affects all layers of infrastructure. Will the idea lose its relevance in a few years? It is unlikely. There are two reasons why the growth of smart cities is unstoppable:

• The need to develop new profitable resources. Digital megacities bring in significant income in the development of the IT industry, the value of which in a couple of years will be approximately $ 1.5 trillion;
• Urban population growth. Up to 70% of the world economy is concentrated in cities. The more these numbers grow, the more difficult it becomes to control such large industries. Therefore, the concept of a smart city of the future is so popular - it is becoming the main tool for managing the economy in developed countries.

Today, approximately 60% of the world's people live in cities, and this figure is on the rise.

If it's so profitable, why does it take so long for cities to get smarter?

The reason why smart megacities are not yet sprouting across the planet like mushrooms after rain is that there is no single system for collecting and analyzing data in the world. Information is collected by too heterogeneous devices - navigators, smartphones, search engines. And more often than not, a huge layer of data simply lies dead weight - because it is not clear how to apply it and synchronize it within the framework of working with one platform.

The second reason is the lack of necessary capacities. The development of smart cities requires considerable costs and the use of modern equipment, and the latest servers are needed to store big data. However, scientists are sure that progress will inevitably lead to the fact that smart settlements will become a common trend.