Name: KAPIL SJ
Reg. Number: 14ETME005056
Course code: MEC406A
Semester/Batch: 7/2014
Mentor: Dr. T. N. SRIKANTHA DATH
Declaration
The seminar report submitted herewith is a result of my own investigations and that I
have conformed to the guidelines against plagiarism as laid out in the Student
Handbook. All sections of the text and results, which have been obtained from other
sources, are fully referenced. I understand that cheating and plagiarism constitute a
breach of University regulations and will be dealt with accordingly.
Signature of the
Date
student
MEC406A-Seminar 1
Contents
Declaration Sheet.....................................................................................................................i
LIST OF TABLES.........................................................................................................................v
ABSTRACT................................................................................................................................1
Introduction and scope of work......................................................................................2
Literature Review............................................................................................................4
2.1 Necessity of Smart city.......................................................................................4
Opportunities.............................................................................................................16
Remarks......................................................................................................................16
MEC406A-Seminar 2
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Megacities by population.......................................................................................5
Table 2: Categorization of Cities...........................................................................................6
Table 3: Comparison between Singapore and Bangalore..................................................10
Table 5: Challenges and Opportunities of Smart Cities......................................................16
MEC406A-Seminar 3
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Masdar City, UAE...................................................................................................6
Figure 2: The most densely populated city Tokyo history with 1, 36, and 17,445 people...8
Figure 3: Smart city Tokyo....................................................................................................9
Figure 4: Singapore in 1960s and 2010..............................................................................11
Figure 5: Conceptual Diagram of Smart City......................................................................15
MEC406A-Seminar 4
ABSTRACT
Smart city is a new concept in the development of new and old existing cities the
Government of India has come up with to address the issue of growing youth population
in the cities who are looking for jobs in the top 10 cities of India. With 70% of the Indians
being expected to reside in the urban areas by 2030 with a demand for land spaces
increasing, the concept is aimed at reducing the population pressure on the major cities.
The main motivation behind the selection of the topic is to understand the dynamics in
which the smart cities are formed, the look-out approach for innovative solutions to
improve urban life.
The report extracts are referred from research papers describing the transformation of
old cities into smart cities, development of new smart cities and the hurdles faced by
cities to become smart cities. The opportunities and threats of Smart City projects have
been studied vividly. The examples were presented to know well-managed old cities like
Mysore and new cities like Singapore. The opportunities of Smart Cities have been
explored while taking into consideration and also threats incurred in technology poses
for the smooth functioning of the cities has been studied.
The concept of smart cities is a new name given to a world-class modern infrastructure
which has been implemented by developed nations to make city with maximum
facilities. The Comparison for developed and developing smart city is done and
suggestions for new cities are discussed.
Keywords:
Smart City, Urban planning, Masdar, Smart planet, Smart America
MEC406A-Seminar 1
1. Introduction and scope of work
Smart City is a novel concept of developing new and old cities with all the basic
amenities. Smart City concept is adopted by traditional old cities to make them more
hospitable and environmental friendly in nature.
Like any other developing nation, India is also witnessing a mass urban migration. With
limited opportunities in many state capitals across the country, the migration is
concentrated to few metro cities in India. Initially these cities were planned for a
population of mere 10 lakh, currently is a home to over half a crore people. With 60% of
the country’s population below 35, this migration is not expected to reverse or stop.
Sensing the threat, the Government of India has come up with the idea of 100 Smart
Cities in with by committing an Rs.1, 89,155 crore.
MEC406A-Seminar 2
This scope of this work is to identify the aspects considered by some of the cities for
getting converted into smart cities. Further the challenges and opportunities in
converting any city into a smart city is analysed. Finally, the path to be taken for
converting into smart city are listed out.
MEC406A-Seminar 3
2. Literature Review
The scope of the literature review is to understand the necessity of Smart cities across
the globe and specifically in India. To understand the need of smart cities, the
categorization of the cities on the basis of the size and type has been discussed vividly in
the literature review, while discussing about the prosperous old and new well managed
cities to arrive at a basis for the opportunities and threats smart cities pose as a concept.
More than 50% of the world for the first time in mankind history living in urban areas. In
2008, 3.42 Billion people are living in urban areas with 74% in developed nations and
44% in developing nations; the pressure on the existing cities due to poor management
of resources is increasing dramatically. About 24-30 people per day are migrating
towards major cities from rural areas for fulfilling their basic and luxurious needs for
better livelihood and lifestyles. This brings in the necessity for smart cities across the
globe which is well planned infrastructural and driven well using technology.
Small Size cities are those cities with a population of less than half a million people but
play an important role in the economic growth of the region. The best example for these
kinds of cities is Surat in Gujarat or Thane in Maharashtra.
Medium Size cities are those cities with a population ranging between 1-5 million
people, which are generally state headquarters, playing an important role politically and
economically for the state or the federal unit into consideration. The best example for
these kinds of cities is Ahmadabad in Gujarat or Guwahati in Assam.
MEC406A-Seminar 4
Big or Mega cities are those cities which are the major contributors to the country’s GDP
and a more to approximately 10 million people and many more regions are expected to
fall in addition to the city due to its increasing growth. In India, cities like Bangalore and
Mumbai fall into this category.
MEC406A-Seminar 5
Hong Kong Growing regulated On time regulations for
Detroit, USA Existing shrinking People are not wishing to
leave due to few reasons.
Futuristic smart city: Masdar city is expected to be the world’s first zero carbon smart
city developed close to the capital city of Abu-Dhabi by Mubadala Development
Company in 2006 at an approximate budget of $22 Billion. The figure 2 is an artistic
impression of the Masdar City which is expected to be functional by 2020. Masdar city
would run on electric vehicles, with a renewable energy hub located in the centre of the
MEC406A-Seminar 6
city (refer figure 2) so that electricity supply across the city would be completely on the
standards of the future pollution-free city norms. The water supply to the city is sourced
from Abu-Dhabi; later on the water is recycled to be used for cooling and watering
purposes. With an upcoming economic zone close to the city supported by technical
institutions within the city, Masdar is setting an example to other upcoming smart cities
across the globe.
3.1 History
IBM begins to work in smarter cities – Smarter Planet Initiative. After shredding its
sprawling and later ailing hardware business, IBM is one of the best examples of
MEC406A-Seminar 7
technology companies to reinvent themselves to sustain in the 21 st Century. Their
attitude towards growth rather than complacency is what makes their efforts significant
in their Smarter Planet initiative, which is currently working with other nations to
develop efficient smart cities.
Developed nations investment in smart cities like South Korea, UAE and China are due to
their ever-rising concern over population and pollution in the current megacities. These
cities are hope to revive the situation by investments in developing new cities and
upgrading the older cities. While India has recently embarked on this journey, other
nations are already doing this since years.
Figure 2: The most densely populated city Tokyo history with 1, 36, and 17,445 people
Tokyo, the Capital of Japan in the late 1970s became the world’s largest city by
population and size. But the condition and standards of living of the city wasn’t good.
Figure 3 describes the best image of Tokyo, the missing skyscrapers and the mismanaged
housing and road infrastructure depicts the unorganized state of the capital of Japan.
MEC406A-Seminar 8
Figure 3: Smart city Tokyo
With the aim to sustain the city’s economic importance and reduce pressure on the
existing resources, the Government of Japan came up with the idea of transforming the
city into a smart city, which later went on to become the Asia’s first city to achieve the
smart city tag. Figure 3 shows the dramatic change in urban infrastructure of the city
from late 1970s into the 21st Century.
MEC406A-Seminar 9
concepts, the smart environment entered trashes and land filled areas. Nowadays, the
cities municipalities have been using Technology to recycle and to get benefits, the
environment protection has played as a key role in field that made people used
technology to treated environmental problems. The problems can be reduced in the
cities when several things should be considering in the master plan of cities.
To understand the actual basis of smart cities, it is very vital to understand the
differences between a sprawling unorganized technological hub like Bangalore and a
smart city like Singapore which is currently the leading economic hub in South East Asia.
Table 3 discusses the differences between two cities on the basis of parameters like area,
population, vehicular density, etc.
MEC406A-Seminar 10
Figure 4: Singapore in 1960s and 2010
Table 3 discusses about the differences between the Singapore and Bangalore. But
before the discussion builds on the differences between the two growing cities, the
transformation of Singapore in 50 years is tremendous. Figure 4 is a pictorial
representation of two different phases of the city over the years of transformation. An
island nation in the backwards of Malaysia has grown out to become one of the major
economic hubs and known for its clean environment and smart city management has
become an inspiration for many other traditional cities to transform as smart cities.
MEC406A-Seminar 11
Bangalore was founded 500 years back, was a sleepy state capital of Karnataka, became
a booming IT hub thanks to the favorable climatic conditions for Computer systems. With
many areas like Basavangudi, Jayanagar, Yelahanka, etc. best examples of planned
infrastructure in the city, overcrowding wasn’t handled properly by the municipal
corporation. Unplanned addition of new areas into the city made waste management,
road infrastructure, availability of water very difficult for the municipal corporation,
thereby falling short on criteria to even provide basic amenities to the general
population. While discussing about Singapore, strict regulations were implemented since
the initial days of the formation of the new city-nation, which made it simpler for the
local government to implement new-age technologies to make Singapore a smart city.
Smart transport and traffic management solutions are also at risk. In Japan, Softbank has
created a smart parking project which allows drivers to monitor available spots and book
parking spaces, and while lucrative for city planners, the researchers note that such
systems, reliant on connected Narrow Band IoT (NB-IoT) sensors and a low-power wide
area network (LPWAN), may be abused by cybercriminals.
MEC406A-Seminar 12
3.4 Data Analysis
For the purpose of analysis, the following top smart cities have been identified for study
to highlight the action taken by them in overcoming problems during implementation
o Vienna: - Successful transformation to become one of the greenest cities in the
world, uses recycled fuel like biomass is employed to heat the public buildings
o Seattle: - Green technology implementation was a major issue in the city,
thereby they encouraged the citizens to go green by giving tax rebates to
citizens who adopt new technology to make the city smarter
o Stockholm: - One of the world’s first cities to implement 4G network, used this
as an potential to develop the city’s infrastructure through internet
connectivity by encouraging tech companies to become a part of their Kista
Science City
o London: - With the imposition of congestion charges and implementation of
technologies to encourage public transport like underground Wi-Fi, smart car
parking system, etc. this city came over their problems and currently is solving
the issues in the healthcare sector
o Rio de Janeiro: - Riding on the infrastructure built for the Olympics 2016, it
became one of the few cities to benefit from the large infrastructure built
during the Olympics as it signed a deal with IBM to convert the city into a smart
city successfully
o Hong Kong: - Capitalizing on the high smartphone penetration across the
globe, it completely transformed the city with contactless payments across all
kiosks in the city be it the milk booth or the transportation system, thereby
moving a step forward in their Digital 21 Strategy
Six major cities have undergone a transformation from traditional poor infrastructure
city into a smart city. On the basis of the transformation, factors which impact the
implementation of new concepts in old cities have been listed
o Organising the disorganised sectors in all the levels of management of the city
structure. Singapore is one of the best examples for this kind of a transformation.
The Benevolent leader Lee Kuan Yew transformed the entire organizational
structure into a centralized format which enabled the micro-management of
resources in the city easier and implementation of new concepts quicker.
MEC406A-Seminar 13
o Public and private partnership projects. Vienna, a beautiful city capital of Austria is
generally experiences severe cold temperature all-round the year. By inviting
Public Private Partnership into renewable energy systems, the most of the heating
systems of major public and private buildings in Vienna are run using biomass.
o Reduction of private automobiles and using public vehicles, metros etc. which
enables last mile connectivity. London gave in lucrative options like internet
connectivity and smart parking systems to users of the Tube and the Bus facility
and imposed congestion charges on private automobile users to address this issue
successfully.
o Organised collection of taxes and fines. Seattle did this in an amazing way by
giving tax benefits to people who contribute to the betterment of the city while
imposed fines on regular offenders. This got the system channelized to only one
type of tax collection system.
Like any other concept or technology, Smart cities also has its own share of challenges it
poses while creates numerous opportunities for all people in the ecosystem. While it is
said that if challenges are addressed effectively, they can become opportunities for the
betterment of human mankind. Some of the listed challenges faced by the Smart Cities
concept is
MEC406A-Seminar 14
- Housing and infrastructure: - Encouraging people to construct homes in an
organized manner where supply of amenities becomes easier while top builders
are attracted by the economic development of the city.
- Water, waste and sewage management: - One of the most critical aspects of the
growth and sustainability of the system, a guideline must be created in order to
address this issue.
- Pollution: - Norms have to be set for pollution in and around the city to curb
situation like Delhi is facing today
- Transportation: - Development of Bus Rapid Transport System, Special Purpose
Vehicle, Metro, etc. before the citizens develop the habit of using private
transport
- Emergency services: - Green corridor availability for emergency services at the
right time within accessible range
- Power supply: - Development of renewable power for the city which can be used
to reduce the dependencies on non-renewable power
The challenges discussed above are listed in a tabulated form which looks out for
opportunities which can or rather are created because of these challenges. Table 5
describes the opportunities derived from the challenges and supporting remarks for the
same.
MEC406A-Seminar 15
Table 4: Challenges and Opportunities of Smart Cities
MEC406A-Seminar 16
5. Conclusion and Suggestions for Future Work
During the study of Smart City Projects, its opportunities and threats through various
research papers, journals and books, following conclusions were drawn on why smart
cities are very important machine for the growth of an economy, be it developing or
developed economy.
It would be easy for the mass migrating population to look for better
opportunities and consider the fact of better standards of living at lower costs
as many cities are offering the same lucrative jobs
The brand image of the city and the country as a whole increases which
encourages businesses to invest in the country, which adds to the revenues of
the Government
It can be a source of attraction for tourists from all over the world, thereby
government can generate more jobs from this sector. Singapore is the best
example for a tourist city attraction spot
The smart cities are going to be big economic driver in the coming years with a potential
of $ 1.5 trillion business. This makes Smart City as a concept very lucrative to many
developing nations like India (Gandhinagar) and China (Dongtan) to invest in these kinds
of cities.
Encouragement from the government has to be channelized in the right manner. This can
be done easily by motivating people to come up with ideas which can solve the issues
faced by traditional cities and upcoming smart cities. Bengaluru, once the garden city of
India has moved on to become the garbage city of India, due to sheer negligence of the
administration and the general public.
While the listed problems are faced by the IT Hub, proper implementation of principles
of Smart City can get Bangalore its lost glory and make it a more hospitable place to live.
This also applies to Metro cities like Delhi and Mumbai, which are facing a similar
MEC406A-Seminar 17
situation like Bangalore. If proper planning is conducted, the upcoming capital of Andhra
Pradesh can be a role model for all smart city projects in India.
MEC406A-Seminar 18
REFERENCES
1. Castro, P. S., Zhang, D., Chen, C., Li, S., and Pan, G. 2013. From taxi GPS traces to
social and community dynamics: A survey. ACM Comput. Surv. 46, 2, Article 17
(November 2013), 34 pages. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2543581.2543584
3. Hannah Merry, “Population increase and the smart city” Accessed on 26th
November 2017https://www.ibm.com/blogs/internet-of-things/increased-
population-smart-city/
4. Jeffrey M. Sellers, Daniel Kübler, Melanie Walter-Rogg, and R. Alan Walks (Eds.).
(2013). The Political Ecology of the Metropolis: Metropolitan Sources of Electoral
Behaviour in Eleven Countries. New York
6. Mirabella, N., Castellani, V., Sala, S. 2014 Current options for the valorization of
manufacturing waste: a review. Journal of Cleaner Production.
MEC406A-Seminar 19