Every day, from 0 to 24 hours, cities and local communities around the world are becoming smarter. Modern technology is merging with the needs of citizens to improve the standard of living as much as possible.
The application of various technological solutions that transform the vast amounts of data collected daily in cities into assistance for the daily lives of citizens, as well as activating residents to actively participate in the development of their city, is a priority for every city authority.
Spontaneous projects The coexistence between newcomers, relatively new urban residents such as bots, robots, cameras, drones, sensors, applications, and cloud data, and natives, citizens who love their city, still needs to become idyllic. – The level of savings and management efficiency has undoubtedly increased in recent years, especially after extensive investments in increasing the energy efficiency of buildings and transitioning to environmentally friendly energy sources. Furthermore, more environmentally efficient vehicles are being introduced into public urban transport, which has brought significant improvements in air quality and reduced maintenance costs of the vehicle fleet in several cities. Generally, a larger number of citizens have seen reduced energy and transportation costs, but, of course, the question of fair distribution always remains, which often arises from inadequate application of technology. The latest example of doubt is the heat allocators, which show good results in developed countries, but here they are a source of controversy. It is evident that the root of the problem lies in implementation or organization, not in the technology itself. A pronounced problem is the chronic lack of strategic planning at the city level, disrespect for causality, which is why projects are implemented spontaneously, roughly as EU funds become available, rather than according to the criterion of maximum benefit for the local community – explains Damir Medved, an expert from Ericsson Nikola Tesla for new areas, including smart city solutions.
For entrepreneurial ideas He cites the example of gasification: first, gasification is initiated, a feasibility study is made, a network is built, all under the assumption of annual consumption that ensures the project’s profitability, and immediately after that, the implementation of the energy efficiency project begins, isolating most buildings and thus significantly reducing gas consumption – which is why the first project fails. – Of course, the damage is great, where the loss of citizens’ trust in the city administration’s ability and less support for new technologies is a bigger problem than the financial one. There are many similar examples, just think of waste disposal, and the only way to avoid such mistakes in the future is better education for all stakeholders in planning processes – says Medved. Ericsson is deeply involved in many projects that demonstrate and measure the transformational capacity of new technologies in the context of sustainable development of smaller and larger communities. The range is wide: from projects reducing crime rates in several South American cities where, after the introduction of surveillance systems, improvements in public lighting, and other innovative projects, a crime reduction of 18 to 30 percent was recorded, without increasing the number of police officers and relevant services; through innovative traffic management, parking, and tourist flow projects in Spanish Santander to the transformation of entire urban districts in Stockholm or Qatar. – Unfortunately, in our society, more attention is often paid to external effects, so it is more interesting news that someone has installed two smart lamps than that many communities have already made significant organizational and technological preparations that will enable the introduction of new smart city technologies on a much larger scale. In this context, it is always important to emphasize the importance of transparency and accessibility of technological platforms and data collected in the context of a smart city, or the importance of unlocking all potential for the development of small and medium-sized enterprises on entirely new foundations. In this context, I particularly highlight the city of Rijeka, whose opening of data access using Ericsson’s IoT platform will surely bring new entrepreneurial ideas and interesting projects – emphasizes Medved.
Room for progress Croatian local communities are also participating in the smartening process, with Hrvatski Telekom planning to implement many more projects. – Thanks to precise measurements of many indicators, we will be able to provide answers about the concrete benefits for the local community, budget savings, energy savings, and environmental preservation, although it is already quite clear that such projects are necessary for the sustainable progress of local and regional areas. The speed of introducing these solutions in the future will be an indicator of the progress of the entire society – explains Igor Cerinski, responsible for managing Smart City and EU Funding projects at HT. He says that citizens have embraced smart solutions in the automatic billing system for municipal waste and networked charging stations for electric vehicles. – We expect great interest in parking solutions, and there are warm and positive reactions in the communities where we have implemented projects that unify full user control over lighting, e-mobility with alerts for irregularities in traffic movement and parking, all with internet access, with full control over safety, monitored consumers, and air quality. In this, the overall result of applying our solutions and the comprehensive benefit for the local community in the future will be seen. Currently, we are the only ones in Croatia, with our strategic and local partners, offering comprehensive solutions for smart cities, from the level of basic infrastructure to specific applications – says Cerinski. He emphasizes that they plan to develop and introduce new ideas and solutions, especially in communities that are just starting in the smart direction. – There is great interest in already proven projects that we have perfected in partnership with end users for whom they are intended. We always follow examples of good practice from Europe and the world where various directions of ICT solution development can be found, but I must emphasize that Croatian innovation and solutions are globally recognized. Our goal is to enrich the natural beauty of our cities and regions with attractive and useful ICT solutions, among which I would highlight smart sensor solutions in urban services and ‘big data’ analyses of tourism and traffic. Why shouldn’t every island be at the technological level of Krk, every city focused on modernization like Dubrovnik or Velika Gorica, or every county open to smart solutions like Zagreb or Split-Dalmatia? There is still much room for progress, so our plans are mainly concentrated within borders – concludes Cerinski.
