10 predictions for smart city priorities in 2020

Month: December 2019
IoT projects will slow down and cities will have to decide if 5G is best for vehicle-to-infrastructure communication, IDC says.
Over the next decade of smart cities work, there will be fewer IoT projects, more citizen input, and more communication between cars and infrastructure, according to the smart cities team at IDC.
City leaders will build digital trust in new technology by setting clear data-use policies as the first step in the technology procurement process.
Although climate change did not appear on the predictions list, Ruthbea Yesner, vice president worldwide government insights at IDC, said it is a huge driver of smart city work.
“Cities are looking at how anything from communications to technology can build community resilience and help them respond and adapt to this changing environment,” Yesner said.
IDC predicts that by 2023 cities and governments will spend $196 billion globally on smart cities work. The biggest spending categories are fixed visual surveillance, public transportation, and smart lighting.
IDC’s 10 predictions for smart cities work in 2020 fall into five main buckets:
- Public safety
- Data use
- Talent issues
- Digital trust
- Macroeconomic impact of technology
The full list is below. The IDC smart cities team discussed predictions 1, 3, 4, and 10 during a recent webinar.
Roadblocks to IoT success
IDC’s predictions start out with a stark description of the challenges many city leaders face with IoT projects: In 2020, 10% to 30% of IoT will fail to launch or scale due to weak performance metrics, poor understanding of products, and lack of funding.
Yesner said that IDC has found that more than 35% of cities have deployed an IoT project while 12% said they had developed but not launched it.
In a survey, city leaders said IoT projects stalled or died because of lack of internal skills, limited budgets, and a lack of understanding of the technology’s benefits. Yesner said there are many roadblocks to success, including a lack of staff and resources.
“Some of these didn’t meet expectations because the outcomes were too broad or not measurable,” she said.
Yesner said that assumptions often didn’t match the reality of how cities work. One example of expectations not matching results is a popular project of converting incandescent street lights to LEDs. Yesner said that because many U.S. cities pay a flat fee for electricity, officials did not see a cost savings for using less electricity.
“You see energy savings from the conversion but you don’t get benefits from programmability and dimming because you’re not adjusting costs based on metered energy,” she said.
Yesner also said that many products from vendors are untested, immature, and oversold.
In a related IoT prediction, IDC thinks that by 2023, 20% of cybersecurity incidents will stem from Smart City IoT device deployments, which will lead to double-digit increases in cybersecurity software and staff training budgets.
Cities need a sensor strategy that addresses use cases, data protection and physical and cybersecurity plans, she said.
More data ethics policies
Alison Brooks, an IDC research vice president for smart cities and communities, said that cities will respond to increasing skepticism around surveillance technology by establishing clear data use policies.
In No. 3, IDC predicts that 75% of next-gen public safety technology procurements will have specifications preemptively scoped by strict policy frameworks. Prediction No. 4 addresses data policies.
Brooks said that residents mostly accept “intelligence everywhere” data collection in a consumer capacity, but not when the state adopts a similar approach. She said that privacy advocates are concerned with the increasingly broad surveillance of citiezen’s daily activities and potential misuse of biometric data.
“This includes social media monitoring, predictive policing, cell-site simulators, automatic number plate recognition, drones, and gun detection,” Brooks said.
To respond to these concerns, cities will start to develop “carefully worded and strictly scoped policy frameworks that delineate acceptable use.” Setting data-use policies should be the first step in the tech purchasing process.
“Policy is going to have to precede tech procurement and IT will have to work with more stakeholders to de-risk implementation,” she said. “Agencies will need to keep project objectives very simple, restricted and measurable.”
Yesner said that cities have to build community engagement into every project to ensure ultimate success and even funding.
“If you’re going out to a bond to pay for this work, part of the funding process becomes engaging and educating the community,” Yesner said.
5G vs. DSRC for vehicle-to-infrastructure communication
IDC’s prediction No. 10 highlights a challenge cities face in making it easy for cars and trucks to communicate with city infrastructure like stop lights, crosswalks, and stop signs.
A few years ago when municipalities started investing in vehicle-to-infrastructure technology (V2I), dedicated short-range communications was a viable choice. Now that 5G is becoming more available, cities are now stuck in the middle of the debate between two standards.
Max Claps, research director of IDC government insights, said that some automakers are split with some using 5G technology—BMW, Mercedes, and Ford— while others including GM and Volkswagen using DSRC.
IDC predicts that by 2025, 25% of major cities worldwide will have picked one standard or the other and installed V2I infrastructure.
“We recommend that cities work closely with regulators and car manufacturers to make sure the eventual road map minimizes the cost of investment,” Claps said.
He said that cities also need to take into account how will services, storage, and apps will need to scale over time.
“Vehicle to infrastructure connectivity is only as good as the data and the content that is transmitted over endpoint to endpoint exchanges,” he said.
Another IDC 5G prediction is that by 2024 75% of all large cities will use 5G to scale key services including real-time crime centers, V2I connectivity, and smart stadiums.
IDC Worldwide Smart Cities and Communities: 2020 Predictions
1: In 2020, 10%–30% of Smart City IoT projects will fail to launch or scale due to ill-defined outcomes or KPIs, poor understanding of vendor offerings, and/or inadequate funding and stakeholder engagement.
2: By 2021, 20% of cities will use composite indexes to assess the value of initiatives, such as predictive policing, mobility as a service, and personalized care.
3: By 2021, in response to pressure from citizens and advocacy groups, 75% of next-gen public safety technology procurements will have specifications preemptively scoped by strict policy frameworks.
4: By 2022, 50% of large cities will develop data ethics policies that define how and what data can be collected, used, and shared.
5: By 2023, 25% of successful Smart Cities digital twin platforms will be used to automate processes for increasingly complex, interconnected ecosystems of assets and products.
6: By 2023, 20% of cybersecurity incidents will stem from Smart City IoT device deployments, forcing double-digit increases in cybersecurity software and staff training budgets.
7: By 2024, 90% of greenfield cities and 20% of existing cities globally will adopt digital space planning capabilities and new zoning regulations to realize the benefits of the growing sharing economy.
8: By 2024, 70% of city data scientist jobs will be unfilled, resulting in increased investment in robotic process automation and AI-native systems, which will exponentially grow data capabilities without adding headcount.
9: By 2024, one-third of all Smart Cities use cases will be impacted by 5G, and 75% of large cities will use 5G to scale key services such as real-time crime centers, V2I connectivity, and smart stadiums.
10: By 2025, 25% of major cities worldwide will have installed connected vehicle infrastructure using either 5G or DSRC as countries and regions settle on one standard or the other.
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A decade of smart city projects: What worked and what didn’t

Month: December 2019
The idea of smart cities was not on anyone’s radar back in 2005, but New Orleans got a head start on data-driven decision making thanks to Hurricane Katrina.
After Katrina hit and the city’s levees failed, the city started using data to improve and speed-up decision making to support the city’s recovery.
Amsterdam was another early adopter with the Amsterdam Smart Cities Initiative in 2009. The team used data to address depression and increase treatment for people who were not getting help. By combining statistics from insurance companies and information about the cost of treatment for depression, the project team found hot spots in the city where people with depression were not receiving appropriate care.
Steph Stoppenhagen, director of smart cities business development solutions at Black & Veatch, said that public private partnerships (P3s) are an effective way to make smart city projects successful.
“That’s where you create those P3s to build a consortium and do this project that way,” she said.
Stoppenhagen said that smart campuses are a growing trend in P3 smart city projects. Sprint recently announced a smart campus project with Arizona State University to take advantage of 5G service. Sprint is working with the university and the Greater Phoenix Smart Region Consortium to create a Sprint 5G incubator at ASU’s Novus Innovation Corridor and conduct joint research and development.
This look back at smart city projects over the last decade highlights what worked and what didn’t.
Successful smart city work
There are many ways to measure what makes a city smart.
IDC is taking nominations for its second annual Smart Cities awards program with 12 categories. In the first round of awards, Albany, NY, won the smart water category and NYCx Co-Labs in Brownsville, Brooklyn, won for digital equity and accessibility.
Easy Park’s second Smart Cities Index scored 500 cities across 24 criteria that cover everything from recycling to blockchain. Vienna won a 10 for trash management and San Francisco got the top mark for blockchain.
In 2017, the What Works Cities division of Bloomberg Philanthropies launched a certification process to evaluate how well cities use data to improve the quality of life for residents. So far, 13 cities have won a gold or a silver certification with two honorable mentions:
- Arlington, TX – Silver in 2019
- Boston, MA – Silver in 2018
- Kansas City, MO – Gold in 2019 and Silver in 2018
- Los Angeles – Gold in 2018
- Louisville, KY – Gold in 2019 and Silver in 2018
- Memphis, TN – Silver in 2019
- New Orleans, LA – Silver in 2018
- Philadelphia, PA – Silver in 2019
- San Diego, CA – Silver in 2018
- San Francisco, CA – Silver in 2018
- Scottsdale, AZ – Silverin 2019
- Seattle, WA – Silver in 2018
- Washington, DC – Gold in 2019 and Silver in 2018
The certification review process has 45 criteria in eight categories:
- Data Governance
- Evaluations
- General Management
- Open Data
- Performance & Analytics
- Repurposing
- Results-Driven Contracting
- Stakeholder Engagement
Louisville won for building an open-source, cloud-based system Waze Analytics Relational-database Platform (Waze WARP). The platform uses WAZE data, collision reports, and built-environment data to conduct real-time traffic studies. More than 900 government entities are now using this platform to run both historic and real-time querying and analysis to improve mobility, pedestrian and bike safety, road conditions, and emergency response.
Washington, DC’s Right Care, Right Now pilot project was designed to route 911 callers to the right kind of help. Operators now transfers callers with non-life-threatening conditions to an EMS-trained nurse, who determines the most appropriate services. The nurse can schedule a same-day appointment at an urgent or primary care facility and coordinates transportation through Lyft.
Earlier this year, Kansas City passed an ordinance to ensure its commitment to data-driven governance and protect the city’s priorities around transparency. One challenge for smart city work is ensuring that data transparency and access survives the transition to a new mayor.
Low points
American cities faced unintended consequence as a result of one data-driven idea. To improve public transportation in low-income communities, cities started building apartments and condos near transit stops to accomplish this.
Instead of expanding educational and employment opportunities, these developments encouraged gentrification and pushed out the same people the project was designed to help. These new developments often raised rents in poor neighborhoods and priced out the people the transit expansions were meant to serve.
The San Diego Union Tribune studied the developments in four California cities where about 400 multifamily buildings were completed or under construction within a half mile of a transit stop.
In neighborhoods where most families made less than $64,000 a year, the newspaper analysis found that monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment was more than $3,500. In some areas where median household income was less than $30,000, the average rent on a two-bedroom apartment is still more than $3,300.
Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs led one of the biggest smart city fails in the last decade with Sidewalk Toronto. After several years of discussions, Google released ambitious plans in June 2019 to build residential, retail, and office buildings on Toronto’s waterfront.
The project included public Wi-Fi, in addition to other sensors to collect “urban data” to better inform housing and traffic decisions. By October, Sidewalk Toronto leaders had scaled back their plans due to complaints and questions from residents.
Stoppenhagen said the Sidewalks team had great intentions in Toronto but they didn’t have residents and neighborhood organizations at the table.
“This has a bunch of us learning a lot of lessons out there of always bringing the community to the table to make sure they are aligned with the plan so it doesn’t all blow up in smoke,” she said.
Stoppenhagen added that one of the biggest challenges that cities face is addressing privacy concerns.
“We need a better educational plan to explain why we want to use this data and how that will affect someone in the future to their advantage,” she said. “We need to show some use cases back to the public.”
Community engagement is critical
Bas Boorsma, vice president at Cities Today Institute, has a list of 10 why reasons smart cities projects fail and technology myopia and solutionism are at the top of the list. City leaders fall into these traps when the goal is to implement a new technology instead of using tech to solve a city problem.
This mistake is often a result of a related problem—not talking to residents who are most interested in quality of life issues, like access to an internet connection and potholes. Stoppenhagen said this is the frame of reference she uses for smart city projects.
“When I think smart cities, it means more time back to that citizen, how can we be more efficient and give someone back more time?” she said.
In a column about smart city projects, Kendra L. Smith, the associate director of community engagement in the Center for Population Health Sciences at Stanford University, said smart cities leaders must embrace non-digital issues such as “legacy governance, social justice, politics, ideology, privacy and financial elements that are not so smart, efficient or resilient when smart-city planning starts.”
Smith wrote that to succeed and be relevant to residents, city leaders must answer these questions about smart city projects:
- Who decides what the city really needs and will operate going forward?
- What does it really cost to develop a smart city?
- How will a smart city affect social justice in my city?
The key is to make sure digital goals can withstand the real-world reality check from residents and long-standing city operations.
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