Smart City: This City Has Its Own Operating System

Hull City Council said the sensors distributed across the city will allow real-time data collection to improve city services.

Hull's name has been added to the list of smart cities around the world, alongside Las Vegas, Copenhagen and Jaipur, as the Yorkshire port city begins using its own operating system to centralize data management and more efficient resource management. after.

Hull City Council said it will use IoT sensors distributed across the city to collect real-time data to better control issues such as street lighting, waste collection, vehicle parking and traffic congestion, thereby reducing costs and providing better services. city services.

The council is working with local telecommunications service provider Connexin. Connexin is based on Cisco's City Dynamics platform - a subscription-based software that allows city operators to view and manage data from multiple sensors and a single dashboard.

Furqan Alamgir, founder of Connexin, told ZDNet: "We find it difficult for cities to digitize because they have a lot of siled systems. For example, they might have an LED management system and a traffic management system, but the two systems are not connected to each other. .

"So, based on Cisco's platform, we built a central operating system that unifies all data into one language so that all sensors can communicate seamlessly."

The platform, called CityOS, collects information from different IoT sensors and then passes it on to city operators. This means data will be easier to visualize and therefore better used for resource management.

Councilor Darren Hale said: “The system brings together information currently held in different council computer systems to enable real-time management of public assets across the city.”

This is not to say that city councils will rely entirely on this technology, or that traffic lights or garbage collection systems will crash if CityOS encounters IT problems because the system will not store data.

It also means the council can choose whether to insert data into it. "We don't want to own this data," Alamgir said. "CityOS can only see this data if the city council allows it." This is the idea behind 'Programmable City'. "

Almost a year ago, the city of Hull announced it would take on the Smart City Challenge and has started trialling smart bins as part of a partnership with Connexin.

Sensors installed in the bins monitor waste fill levels and use this data to determine optimal waste collection times or more efficient collection routes.

"We are putting the UK back on the map in the internet space," Alamgir said. "It's great to see the UK leading Silicon Valley in innovation."

Author: Daphne Leprince-Ringuet

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