Smart city solutions are
being adopted in cities
globally around a rage of sorts. The project is followed vociferously with
deemed status in many countries. Following examples would give a glimpse of the
stretch of progress made,
1. Copenhagen is leading green city, has lowest carbon
footprints in world, and is in talks with MIT for a smart bike,
2. Amsterdam, is a leading smart city, public
private partnership based mobility solutions and smart parking to development of home energy
storage for integration to smart
grid and 40 smart city
projects completed.
3. Vienna has large range of smart city activities,
planning department, 100 smart
city projects, electric mobility solutions with 440 stations and smart media.
4. Barcelona is a smart city with e-mobility, bike sharing project
with 6000 bikes, sensors for traffic congestion and waste management. Barcelona’s
22@ innovation district is also an impressive mix of smart urban planning and entrepreneurial
innovation.
5. Paris has Eiffel tower and pioneer in smart city arena. 20,000
bikes network led to decongestion of vehicles, entrepreneurial ecosystem which
is 11th best in world.
6. Stockholm has 40% of land mass dedicated to
green space, working on carbon neutrality by 2050, first in commitment to data
privacy and security for citizens.
All the above cities
in world have been at smart
city projects for more than few decades and there has been a lot of
growth in the cities
becoming modern. The smart
city has been professed as a major breakthrough of century and the
guidance for this is keenly being assessed. In India the development of
projects in smart
water, smart
electricity, smart
transport, smart
waste management amongst others has been going in their true nature. Many cities experience better
environmental benefits to success in delivering cost effective public service
in their countries as research into smart city innovation gets attention and demands. The channel
development of smart
cities is overall expected to materialize for 40 cities out of 100 which were earlier
envisaged. This is so as many cities governance and progress is stalled for funds, management
and direction from analysis of field reports. There is need for public private
partnership but at the moment there is less opportunity as the design of smart city projects is
not readily providing results and takes time. Probably there would be better
assimilation of data and resources with cities before venturing into smart city projects for
best results in future. The smart
city projects application to cities in India is awaited with bated
breath.