Imagine a well-organized city with efficient public transportation and where citizens integrate, during their commuting, different forms of transport, including electric car sharing. Imagine a connected city built around digital services and networks and where smart and inclusive infrastructures bring communities together.
A Smart city involves different levels of development, for innovative management of urban development. The European Union expects a total expenditure of 12 billion euros for the realization of “smart cities” until 2020. By deploying technologies, from smart sensors to 5G network and cloud computing, a smart city measures real-time data for greater efficiency. Thanks to IoT, it will be possible to exchange data and valuable information between buildings, objects, and people. Likewise, thanks to ICT technologies, cities can increase energy efficiency and decrease costs. Smart cities embed intelligent transportation systems (ITS) in traffic lights, car parks, toll-booths, roads, and bridges while making them increasingly able to communicate with each other. Regarding specific cases, by 2020 Kuala Lumpur is likely to become a smart city thanks to the implementation of Alibaba Cloud’s “Malaysia City Brain”. This technology will deploy AI and data analytics in order to produce real-time traffic predictions and alleviate traffic congestion.
Spaces become intelligent through the use of sensors that monitor the use of available resources and possible city pollution. Thanks to digital evolution, buildings become smart too. We are talking about the so-called Building Automation, which allows the automation and efficiency of the functions of a building that becomes a complex ecosystem of connected devices. These smart infrastructures come from the need to reduce energy consumption and environmental impacts, but they also represent the opportunity to offer users extremely high levels of comfort.
Mobility will be an important pillar as well and it will have to be reinvented. Mobility providers have to meet the ever changing needs of consumers who, in recent years, have demonstrated to be prepared to sacrifice individual forms of mobility in favor of other modes of transport. Instead of using cars, citizens will increasingly opt for a combination of electric car sharing, bike-sharing and public transport. This, by simply clicking on an App, to book, unlock the vehicle and pay. And for long distances, there will be self-driving vehicles that can interact with other vehicles for traffic management. In the city of the future Maas platforms will thrive as they can address the demand for fast, seamless and convenient mobility services.
It is about providing all possible options and ensuring connections between all the point As and all the point Bs. Improving people mobility by providing a solution aimed at cutting traffic pollution and congestion is also GaiaGo’s mission. Having an electric car in their building allow people to switch from ownership to car-sharing and helps facilitate the path towards achieving smart cities.