34
F. Firouzi et al.
The main reason cities have not been well designed is because they grew
organically in response to increases in population. When the population increases
rapidly, then urban planning cannot keep pace. The other problem is that city
services are independent of each other, not communicating to solve problems
together. The way cities are organized prevents collaboration, with each service
or department getting their own funding and incentivized to solve their narrow
problems. This leads to redundancy, waste, and shortcomings in meeting the needs
of the city population. What is needed is a more scalable, collaborative, efficient
system of city management and improvement. The Internet of Things can provide a
city with more detailed and timely information and facilitate better solutions to the
inefficiencies of modern cities.
1.4.6.1 Smart City Layers
As proposed by Cisco, an IoT solution for a smart city can be described with four
general layers [17]:
• Street Layer: At the base is the street layer. This is where devices and sensors
are placed in various parts of the city to collect data and take automated or
commanded actions resulting from the analyzed data. The sensors used will
depend on the location and function expected of them.
– Video cameras are currently in widespread use in cities for various reasons.
Some are aimed at highway sections, interchanges, or some city street
intersections, and these are used to determine and report traffic conditions
primarily. Other cameras are mounted at street level and are intended to monitor pedestrian behavior or are used for security purposes. The improvements
in video recognition technology mean that these can be automated to perform
facial recognition and vehicle recognition and make automated reports for
security, traffic, and accidents.
– Device counters or vehicle detectors are used to count the number of vehicles
passing a certain area, or that are parked on streets or in structures. This is
another technology that has been in use for many years to great benefit. Its
use can be expanded to make parking counts more available to private drivers
and their applications to better coordinate parking. They can also be adapted
to count other things such as birds behaving as pests in public areas.
– Magnetic sensors are able to detect the presence of vehicles in specific
locations. This is another sensor that can be applied to the parking problem. It
can also be used to make traffic lights more responsive.
– An air quality sensor can be used to measure the amounts of particulate matter
present in the atmosphere. This data can be used to give warnings to citizens
when air quality is bad or to detect the culprits of high levels of pollution in
order to improve air quality.
F. Firouzi et al.
The main reason cities have not been well designed is because they grew
organically in response to increases in population. When the population increases
rapidly, then urban planning cannot keep pace. The other problem is that city
services are independent of each other, not communicating to solve problems
together. The way cities are organized prevents collaboration, with each service
or department getting their own funding and incentivized to solve their narrow
problems. This leads to redundancy, waste, and shortcomings in meeting the needs
of the city population. What is needed is a more scalable, collaborative, efficient
system of city management and improvement. The Internet of Things can provide a
city with more detailed and timely information and facilitate better solutions to the
inefficiencies of modern cities.
1.4.6.1 Smart City Layers
As proposed by Cisco, an IoT solution for a smart city can be described with four
general layers [17]:
• Street Layer: At the base is the street layer. This is where devices and sensors
are placed in various parts of the city to collect data and take automated or
commanded actions resulting from the analyzed data. The sensors used will
depend on the location and function expected of them.
– Video cameras are currently in widespread use in cities for various reasons.
Some are aimed at highway sections, interchanges, or some city street
intersections, and these are used to determine and report traffic conditions
primarily. Other cameras are mounted at street level and are intended to monitor pedestrian behavior or are used for security purposes. The improvements
in video recognition technology mean that these can be automated to perform
facial recognition and vehicle recognition and make automated reports for
security, traffic, and accidents.
– Device counters or vehicle detectors are used to count the number of vehicles
passing a certain area, or that are parked on streets or in structures. This is
another technology that has been in use for many years to great benefit. Its
use can be expanded to make parking counts more available to private drivers
and their applications to better coordinate parking. They can also be adapted
to count other things such as birds behaving as pests in public areas.
– Magnetic sensors are able to detect the presence of vehicles in specific
locations. This is another sensor that can be applied to the parking problem. It
can also be used to make traffic lights more responsive.
– An air quality sensor can be used to measure the amounts of particulate matter
present in the atmosphere. This data can be used to give warnings to citizens
when air quality is bad or to detect the culprits of high levels of pollution in
order to improve air quality.