JUNIPER RESEARCH
What is a Smart City?
“A Smart City is an urban ecosystem that places emphasis on the use of digital technology, shared knowledge and cohesive processes to underpin citizen benefits in vectors such as mobility, public safety, health and productivity.”
Many smart city studies have been conducted with the aim of projecting technology spend, or service revenue for businesses. However, Juniper Research and Intel believe that these studies do not sufficiently account for the most important part of the city itself: its citizens.
As such, Juniper has conducted a study of smart cities across the globe with the aim of uncovering the measurable time rewards to citizens:
Time: how can smart cities’ technology and strategies be used to ‘give back’ time to citizens? Free time is a scarce commodity in the modern world and has a powerful impact on an individual’s ability to reduce stress, maintain happiness and health.
Juniper examined cities in terms of their progress, and future potential, across 4 key indices, with the goal of evaluating how they might deliver positive citizen outcomes in terms of time and quality of life. These indices are:
- Mobility: urban transport systems, including public and private transport. Also includes non-motorised transport solutions.
- Healthcare: healthcare service delivery for citizens, including access to services and performance.
- Public safety: city safety as measured by crime levels, mortality and law enforcement services’ efforts to combat these challenges.
- Productivity: city policies and technologies in use aimed at promoting citizen productivity, democratisation of services and wealth distribution.
Why Do We Need Smart Cities?
The Emergence of ‘Megacities’ & Overcrowding
The 20th and 21st century haven given birth to some 37 ‘megacities’ (cities with populations greater than 10 million individuals), including Tokyo, Mexico City, New York City and Rio de Janeiro.
In each of these cities, the density of the population in relation to available resources, infrastructure and services has given rise to complaints about overcrowding, while demand for affordable housing, proper sanitation, food supply and healthcare services are all put under pressure as a result of mass migration to large cities.
Cities are thus being forced to consider how to alleviate these pressures; technology, analytics and modern urban policies are emerging as ‘smart solutions’ to deliver sustainable, efficient environments for citizens.
Quality of Life
One of the main drivers for urban migration has been the promise of a higher quality of life, driven by increased personal wealth and a greater number of life-opportunities. As a result, cities are under pressure to present themselves as more favourable places to live and work, competing to attract the best talent and investment.
Meanwhile, many cities suffer from a large inequality gap; the favelas of Rio de Janeiro provide a notable example of vast differences in quality of life across cities.
Smart cities are those that recognise these challenges and adopt their planning and strategy to address them. This requires smart policies to ensure wealth is not distributed unevenly, alongside technology as an enabler.
Congestion & Air Pollution
The motor vehicle, often presented as a symbol of personal freedom, is commonly anything but, inside city limits. High volumes of vehicle ownership, coupled with 20th century urban planning modelled around the automobile, have created massive pressure on the road infrastructure. Consequently, long traffic jams are a frequent bug-bear for citizens, elevating stress levels. Additionally, the slow movement of traffic increases the volume of microscopic particulate matter affecting the health of drivers, as well as those on the streets. Traffic, and air pollution, are serious issues facing cities today.
Addressing urban mobility is one of the key aims of smart cities, not least because of the substantial benefits realised in reducing congestion. Intelligent traffic systems are key here, alongside smart investment and a policy to reduce motor vehicle use.
How Do These Factors Affect Me Today?
Addressing urban mobility is one of the key aims of smart cities, not least because of the substantial benefits realised in reducing congestion. Intelligent traffic systems are key here, alongside smart investment and a policy to reduce motor vehicle use.
“Heavy Congestion in Cities can Result In Drivers Spending More than 70 hours per Year in Gridlock”
- In many cities, the average peak-time vehicle speed is a crawling 4mph (6kmh);
- The stress of the morning commute has been shown to be hazardous to citizens’ health; a study by the British Cardiac Patients Association in 2004 found that emergency call-outs for life-threatening heart attacks and strokes peak between 8am and 11am;
- WHO estimates that 3 million deaths every year are attributable to small particulate matter pollution, a large portion of which is generated by vehicle emissions. High levels of congestions result in higher levels of harmful pollutants in the air.
“Cities Suffering from High Rates of Violent Crime are Statistically Likely to Impact the Majority of the Population”
- As a result of high levels of inequality, a large population mass and opportunity for organised crime operation, cities are often relatively dangerous places to live.
- Even an annual figure as ‘low’ as 2% means that most individuals are likely to suffer violent crime at some point during their lives.
- Violent crime resulting in personal injury can often mean time lost in hospital or rehabilitative care. Additionally, there are psychological consequences to consider; anxiety and stress can be damaging to an individual’s well-being. Indeed, a 2015 study by the Office for National Statistics found that 20% more non-victims of violent crime reported feeling that their life was worthwhile in comparison to those that had been victims.
“Hospital Overcrowding in Cities can Result in Patients Waiting Longer Than 4 Hours for a Bed”
- Many cities across the globe report very high hospital bed occupancy rates (over 85%). This can result in exorbitant wait times for in-patients, resulting in time wasted and additional stress for both patients and caregivers. In a healthcare scenario, this exacerbates the likelihood of mistakes being made.
- Furthermore, studies have indicated that overcrowding in hospitals can increase the risk of patients contracting an infection during their stay; in some cases this risk is increased by over 10%. This means that patients in hospital for non-life-threatening conditions may be exposed to environments that could prove fatal for them.
Global smart cities: who are the leading performers today?
The study has ranked the top 20 global smart cities according to their performance and project deployments across the 4 indices studied, alongside their published strategies and key goals for future city development.
Analysis of cities’ performance in each index revealed some notable results.
Mobility winners:
Singapore, San Francisco and London were found to be world-leading cities in addressing urban transportation challenges. Singapore, for example, has applied smart, connected traffic solutions, in conjunction with very strong policy curtailing car ownership in an effort to reduce the number of vehicles on its roads. This level of policy enforcement is not possible in San Francisco or London; consequently, these cities have applied their own traffic calming technology solutions alongside long-term visions for transformative transportation paradigms in the form of MaaS (Mobility as a Service) and AVs (Autonomous Vehicles).
Mobility Trailers:
Trailing cities in this index include Yinchuan, Hangzhou and Bhubaneswar. The study found that, in spite of notable roll-outs such as Yinchuan’s ‘pay-by-face’ public bus service, overall efforts to reduce congestion levels are at an early stage relative to the leading cities. For instance, public transport availability and uptake as a whole was found to be low, while key future urban transport innovations, such as shared transport solutions and AVs, were not found to form part of the cities’ long term vision.
Healthcare winners:
The leading cities in this index were found to be Singapore, Seoul and London. Both Singapore and Seoul were notable in terms of their focus on addressing healthcare service provision for elderly citizens through a range of technologies, including digital service platforms as well as remote monitoring devices. If one considers the fact that, on average, the number of annual visits to a physician increases substantially as one ages, it is clear that these strategies form a crucial part of ensuring that the overall healthcare system is not overburdened; in turn, improving overall healthcare outcomes. Meanwhile, London has applied a broad strategy that combines innovation (such as bicycle share schemes), telehealth and a strategy to reduce healthcare inequality in the city.
Healthcare Trailers:
Hangzhou, Rio de Janeiro and Bhubaneswar were found to have continued challenges that could be addressed through technology and smarter policy. Rio and Bhubaneswar continue to have relatively low levels of hospital bed availability, which could be addressed through better preventative healthcare measures; first by improving citizens’ level of access to digital services as well as wider roll-outs of telehealth and local connected clinics. Meanwhile, all 3 cities suffer from very poor air quality levels, with proven negative impacts on citizens’ health.
Safety Winners:
Singapore, New York and Chicago ranked highly in this index. In the case of New York, the city has worked hard over the last 25 years to address what was an epidemic of violent crime. This was kickstarted by a data-driven approach and has since developed into one where predictive modelling is a key asset both for law enforcement as well as the fire department; a strategy replicated by Chicago. Singapore meanwhile, has trialled smart video surveillance to detect criminal activity.
Safety Trailers:
Wuxi, Yinchuan and Hangzhou were noted to have deployed smart initiatives (smart video surveillance forms part of Yinchuan and Hangzhou’s public safety initiative for example), but have not yet reached a level of integration between emergency services to achieve the optimum response; an important factor in reducing response times and positive outcomes. Meanwhile, these cities have either not clearly outlined, or have a limited strategy to deal with major safety issues such as road traffic incidents and threats posed by cybercrime. This latter point is particularly pertinent to Chinese cities, owing to the country’s high level of smart grid investment and consequent connection of critical infrastructure to the Internet.
Productivity Winners:
The ability to not only encourage digital innovation to address city challenges, but also the ability for citizens to access digital services and city information was judged by Juniper to be critical in improving citizens’ productivity. In that regard Singapore, London and Chicago were found to be leaders, each with large open data stores alongside strategies to encourage private innovation either through funding, specialised test-bed environments (London and Singapore) or through city-wide initiatives to provide citizens with a variety of data (Chicago’s Array of Things project).
Productivity Trailers:
Yinchuan, Hangzhou and Bhubaneswar remain as cities that have yet to address wider productivity challenges. None of these cities has, as yet, encouraged development of solutions from a bottom-up level, with most innovation driven from the top-down. As such, citizens have been, in part, excluded from the process. Meanwhile, the study found that these cities must yet address inequalities present in digital services access.
Download full version (PDF): Smart Cities – What’s in it for Citizens?
About Juniper Research
www.juniperresearch.com
Juniper specialises in identifying and appraising new high growth market sectors within the digital ecosystem. Market sizing and forecasting are the cornerstones of our offering, together with competitive analysis, strategic assessment and business modelling.
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