Smart cities bring unlimited business opportunities

According to a study by the United Nations, by 2050, 70% of the population will be concentrated in urban areas, an increase of 2.3 billion people compared to 2010, and the number of silver-haired people over the age of 60 will triple. In order to solve various life problems brought about by urban congestion in the future, smart city-related solutions have become the most watched key issues on the Internet.

According to the data analysis of Google Trend, the search volume of smart city keywords has increased significantly since 2014, showing that it has become a topic of common concern to governments and industries in recent years. Traditional and typical smart cities are mostly built "from top to bottom", from the initial planning, design, construction to later operation in one go. However, in the recent development of international smart cities, the "bottom-up" 4P (Public-Private-People-Partnership) model that combines civil and citizen forces has become a trend.

For example, the first prize in the 2016 European Urban Innovation Awards iCapital was awarded to Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It is a tripartite collaboration platform that connects the city government of Amsterdam, non-governmental organizations and Amsterdam citizens. The whole city of Amsterdam is used as a test field to accelerate the cooperation between non-governmental organizations and Various ideas put forward by citizens are transformed into feasible business models and solutions.

The challenge of the 4P model lies in how to encourage public participation, gather public consensus, and shape an open and transparent decision-making mechanism. , to enhance citizens' attention to the living environment, and work together to improve the quality of urban life. Because no matter how good the information and communication technology is, if there is a lack of "people"-centered participation elements, smart cities will be difficult to operate, and may eventually form development resistance.

With the breakthrough development of smart sensing and low power wide area network (LPWAN) Internet of Things (IoT) technology, the popularization and application of various smart cities are promoted, including: smart transportation, smart logistics, smart parking, smart buildings, smart communities, smart Agriculture, smart retail, smart energy, smart disaster prevention, etc.

Smart city applications are composed of sensing + network + smart services. In particular, "smart services" represent the access, analysis, prediction or feedback of massive sensing data, enabling the smart city system to automatically filter and analyze information and take intelligent decisions. Achieve urban automation, intelligence, environmental protection and energy saving.

Observing that European and American countries are promoting the development of smart cities, "big data analysis" plays an important driving engine. The useful information generated by "big data analysis" can bring high commercial value to the entire city, from basic data opening (such as the speed of the expressway) to advanced options for providing solutions (such as real-time information on avoiding traffic jams). Navigation path), and finally the central automatic control and decision-making system (such as a dynamic traffic signal management system to alleviate traffic jams), fully upgraded to a smart city that does not require human judgment and operation, and then provides a convenient and comfortable living environment and life quality.

"Big data analysis" is the core of smart city applications, but data privacy (medical and consumer behavior) and information security (such as malicious intrusion) are still urgent and unresolved issues of concern, otherwise the mainstream applications of smart cities will still be imported immediately Benefits are mainly in the industrial field (Industrial IoT), such as smart government, smart factory, smart business office/restaurant, smart transportation/logistics, etc.; while the consumer field involves personal data issues, and the economic benefits of fragmented fields are limited. It is not conducive to promotion and development, such as smart home, home medical care, etc.

At present, the vertical application development of smart cities is still mainly based on government bidding projects. Through investment and subsidies from government departments, advanced technology, complete infrastructure and data assets are introduced to reduce the commercial risk of formal large-scale operation of system solutions. Some bids adopt the BOT method, entrusting private units to be responsible for the operation and maintenance during the concession period, and to generate income and support sustainable development through specific business models.