Why is it important for the cities of the future to integrate objects, technologies, and resources? Why should the cities of the future pursue a smart development model that is sustainable, efficient, and innovative?

By 2050, according to the United Nations report, 70% of the global population will live in cities. The latter must be able to accommodate such urban growth, ensuring a high quality of life for citizens and pursuing objectives of energy efficiency and environmental sustainability.

It follows the need to encourage the design of smart cities, which will allow:

• to increase economic productivity, through the optimization of resources, the elimination of waste, and the reduction of costs;
• to improve the livability of the cities themselves, by intervening in air quality, waste management, urban traffic, the energy system, and public safety.

How? And what are the parameters that allow us to monitor the evolution of a city's smartness?

The layered model of smart cities

The consulting company EY has proposed a model for reading smart cities that is articulated and developed on four interconnected levels, namely:

1. The level of infrastructures and networks:

The first layer represents the foundations on which all the services and activities of a smart city are based, i.e. networks (such as wi-fi, broadband, and 5G), infrastructures and technological equipment.

2. The level of sensors and IoT:

The second refers to sensor networks and IoT devices essential for the collection and analysis of the infinite amount of data generated and shared, concerning:

• the environment (such as quality control of air, water, noise pollution, waste, public lighting);
• user-behavior (think of connected mobility and monitoring of driving behavior);
• the state of the infrastructures (for example the parameters for monitoring the safety of buildings and their level of health and/or degradation in order to activate remote management or maintenance).

This level is the most interesting for the world of IP systems and the role that the latter can play within this evolution.

3. The level of the Service Delivery Platforms:

It is the one relating to the delivery platforms of these services. Platforms that - operating as real operational centers - process and enhance the data generated by the other layers to support the public administration in defining strategies, aimed at improving existing services and/or creating new ones.

4. The level of applications and services:

Finally, the fourth concerns the set of value-added strategies and services offered and delivered to citizens through the application of digital devices (web, mobile, app, viewers).

These four levels together generate the integrated system for the construction of a smart city. The challenge, today, for those who have to design and - at the same time - govern these new paradigms of cities, is precisely to make these levels interconnected, while working on a single basic infrastructure and a single delivery platform for all services.

Within this context, how does Sensoworks act?

Sensoworks applications

Sensoworks has developed an IoT platform that allows you to integrate the first level of infrastructures with the second level of IoT sensors and devices to collect and process the detected data, through the automated and continuous monitoring of operational processes.

The platform can be divided into two areas:

• the Edge includes all the components that make the connection to the machinery;
• the IoT Platform includes all the centralized components, where the data taken from the monitored objects are stored and analyzed, accessing the functions that constitute the true business value of the solution.

But what are the expected basic functionalities and functional advantages offered by this platform? 

Contact Eleonora, our Head of Sales, to download and consult the brochure “Smart City: strategies and services for the city of the future” and to learn more about how to start with your own smart city services.