Many of the world’s largest cities from London and New York City to Rio de Janeiro and Abu Dhabi have recently launched ambitious sustainability initiatives structured around various information and communications technologies. In large part, these initiatives will only achieve their policy goals if the various stakeholders involved can figure out how to translate a deluge of data about the use and abuse of energy into cost savings and carbon emissions reductions.
But those policy objectives are chump change compared to other low-carbon solutions and services these initiatives could create, according to a new report by The Climate Group, Accenture, Arup and the University of Nottingham. The report, Information Marketplaces: The new economics of cities, begins:
"Now is the time for government and business leaders to recognize the value created by smart city thinking. The technology-enabled city is an untapped source of sustainable growth and represents a powerful approach for tackling unprecedented environmental and economic challenges. By unlocking technology, infrastructure and public data, cities can open up new value chains that spawn innovative applications and information products that make possible sustainable modes of city living and working. While smart initiatives are underway in urban centers around the world, most cities have yet to realize the enormous potential value from fully-integrated, strategically-designed smart city development programs. We believe that through clear vision and, most of all, leadership, civic leaders and executives can help cities make the transition to initiatives that maximize the smart city value opportunity."
By way of example, the report highlights London’s foray into digital infrastructure in the form of the London Datastore, an official site providing free access to a number of data-sets from the Greater London Authority.
Emer Coleman, Director of Digital Technologies for London’s Datastore, opened the London Datastore with a web interface that cost less than £15,000 and provided public access to meta-tagged datasets. By allowing developers to access the data, the site has spawned a cottage industry of new application-service development companies.
The report recommends that cities made data publicly accessible in the form of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), which will reduce the cost to third-party developers of creating new information-based services and applications. In the case of the London Datastore, the report described the impacts like so:
"Londoners checking the iTunes App Store will find a plethora of mobile applications that bring transport information to their mobile phones, letting them navigate the city easily and saving time, money and CO2 emissions along the way. One of them, Tube Deluxe, an iPhone guide to the London Underground transport system, has 50,000 active daily users and 350,000 downloads. The best apps are in fact not necessarily built by Transport for London, but instead by a growing group of digital service providers, like Tube Deluxe, that mine London’s datasets to provide new options for citizens."
Sounds smart to me.
Source: forbes , By: William Pentland
Posted in: smart city
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