The term “smart cities” has created plenty of buzz, but even more questions for city managers. Cities are looking to smart infrastructure to reduce costs, improve sustainability, and provide better services to residents. Many cities have begun the initial stepsboth in terms of investments such as smart streetlights or IT initiatives such as open datato make smart cities a reality. In a best-case scenario, these investments will open up new opportunities beyond the simple business case, much like smart phone apps created a new ecosystem beyond the initial benefits of internet-connected phones.
But cities are more complex than individuals and city managers must balance diverse interests, departments, and priorities when making investment decisions. Rapidly developing technology creates added complexity and stokes fears of getting locked in to the wrong technology choice. When implemented appropriately, an IoT platform can help assuage these concerns by reducing complexity and allowing new technologies to be seamlessly added.
Given how new this market is, there are no large-scale examples of full smart city IoT platforms at work in major cities, but a path is emerging for cities to progress from initial smart infrastructure investments while leveraging third-party developers to create data-driven smart cities with benefits for residents, government, and local businesses.
Read this report, developed by smart infrastructure intelligence firm Northeast Group exclusively for Signify, to learn how cities can begin with an initial smart investment like connected street lighting, then build a smart city infrastructure in phases, delivering financial, environmental, health, and safety benefits at every step along the way.
