Published on the 06/06/2019 | Written by Heather Wright

But are our smart cities really smarter?…

Australia and New Zealand have both made a good showing again in IDC’s annual Asia Pacific Smart Cities Awards, with seven Australian projects and four Kiwi projects shortlisted.

The fifth annual awards see projects involving smart water meters and smart irrigation, 3D virtual city modelling (digital twin) tools, a ‘digital teacher’ a 3D city experience and an app designed to simplify police procedures in domestic violence incidents in the running.

Queensland’s Sunshine Council is one council implementing a host of technologies, including the first whole-of-region smart Wi-fi, smart bins and water meters, street lighting and sensors for parking and to monitor wildlife and waterways.

In New Zealand, telco Spark has joined forces with Auckland Transport, NB Smart Cities, Cisco and Auckland Council’s Panuku Development to showcase 5G technology on Madden Street – yes, just a street. Madden Street uses sensors in rubbish bins, car park spaces, street lights, pavements and air monitors to show how 5G could be applied and impact how we interact with technology on a daily basis.

Smart cities are focused on using emerging technologies and innovation to make cities more liveable, and offer new services and economic opportunities.

“The combination of sensors allows various street factors to change, such as a full rubbish bin being emptied or dimming light triggering street lights.”

The smart hubs used to make everything possible are housed in street lamps, removing the ‘ugliness’ associated with smart hubs at street level.

According to IDC smart cities ‘catalyse the digital transformation of urban ecosystems to produce systemic environmental, financial and social outcomes’.

“Smart cities are, by definition, focused on using emerging technologies and innovation to make cities more liveable, and offer new services and economic opportunities,” IDC says.

The research company says the Asia Pacific shortlisted cities have made ‘significant strides’ in the Smart Cities arena, leveraging technology and realigning with the needs and expectations of citizens and residents.

Smart cities have been touted for years. Last year’s Consumer Electronics Show has more vendors selling ‘smart city’ tech than gaming products or drones, highlighting the burgeoning market.

But they’ve also been dubbed a technological landgrab – the bells and whistles addition of technology onto an existing, confused urban landscape. Certainly, there’s big money to be had: IDC has forecast global spending on smart cities initiatives to hit US$95.8 billion this year, with Asia Pacific representing more than 40 percent of the total spend, at $35.4 billion. Singapore alone is expected to invest more than $1 billion in smart cities programs, putting it alongside New York City, Tokyo and London in the billion dollar bracket.

The predicted 2019 spend for Asia Pacific is up 16.8 percent on the 2018 forecast.

Gerald Wang, head of public sector research at IDC Asia Pacific says interconnected ecosystems such as transport and public safety are expected to become increasingly demanded.

“The intelligent edge will also be a new phase of development for maturing smart cities,” Wang says.

“As edge-based smart solutions gain stronger compute capabilities, cloud platforms can be leveraged as a grid computing architecture to fully coordinate and optimise the city’s disparate compute powers, thereby furthering automation within the city.”

So the spending – and enthusiasm – for smart cities is clearly there, but how are Australian and New Zealand cities using the technologies to benefit their citizens?

Talk to anyone who drives in our major cities and it’s clear traffic woes are yet to be solved by ‘smart city’ technologies. Though earlier this year the NSW Government did green light a program to allow better monitoring and real time adjustment of traffic flows at more than 500 intersections across NSW – a project which will see drones deployed to monitor traffic.

The Asia Pacific Smart Cities Awards finalists include a transport initiative from the City of Newcastle, which is seeks ‘to optimise multi-modal networks to deliver time critical, accessible options while promoting cycling, public transport and walking linkages to reduce reliance on private vehicles and the city’s carbon footprint’.

The city’s Smart Move Newcastle initiative also includes trials of the use of autonomous vehicles for last-mile connectors and an EV charge network and e-transit hub.

The Smart Move Transport projects aren’t the only smart city work winning recognition for the City of Newcastle: It’s also shortlisted for its Hunter Innovation smart city infrastructure project. That project involves a passive layer of fibre and conduit to support above-ground smart city technology; more than 150 smart poles in the CBD to improve the lighting network efficiency; a LoRaWan network for power connectivity and support for IoT sensors and data collecting devices; a Wifi backbone as alternate access to the environmental sensing network and IoT, smart parking and an environmental sensing network to record real time data such as air quality and temperature.

A solar farm consisting of 14,500 panels – the largest council owned solar farm in NSW – netted Newcastle it’s third project to be shortlisted this year.

In Launceston, the Launceston City Council is using digital twins for city planning in what IDC says is the first project in Australia to offer a full regional virtualisation, dynamically modelled on a range of factors such as energy consumption, people movement and land use.

Cairns Regional Council’s smart urban irrigation project, collecting data via ground surveillance technology in an effort to save water, and Mid-Western Regional Local Council’s smart water meter initiative, recording hourly and daily water usage to enable more proactive water management round out the Australian projects shortlisted for the awards.

Across the ditch in New Zealand, there seems to be less emphasis on sensors and the environment and more focus on the human touch, with the Family Harm app, developed on behalf of the New Zealand Police, among those shortlisted. The app simplifies the documentation required for domestic violence incidents and provides a direct connection to the national police database.

A ‘digital teacher’, courtesy of electricity network provider Vector, aims to educate children about energy, while Virtual Wellington provides a virtual reality version of Wellington enabling people to interact with city data in a 3D environment to understand urban issues and futures.

Both New Zealand and Australia have traditionally done well in the IDC Asia Pacific Smart Cities Awards, with IDC market analyst Jefferson King noting the two countries have consistently punched above their weight.

Last year both Ipswich and Auckland’s Safeswim took out awards.

Now if they could just turn their attention to our traffic congestion…