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Exploring IoT Use Cases In Smart Cities

2020-12-04by Rishabh Sinha

This article discusses various use cases of IoT Technology in Smart Cities.


1. Monitoring Road Traffic

In a smart city, citizens can easily commute between 2 locations with the utmost safety and efficiency. To achieve citizens' safe commute, various government bodies are looking to adopt IoT development and implement smart traffic solutions.

When we talk about smart traffic solutions, they use various forms of sensors and the GPS data fetched from drivers' personal devices to determine the location, speed, and registration number of the vehicle. Simultaneously, smart traffic lights connected to a Cloud platform allows monitoring of traffic signal timings and modify the signal based on the current scenario. With the help of historical data, smart solutions for traffic management can be used for predicting where the traffic would go by taking correct measures for avoiding any traffic congestions.

2.  Smart Parking

With the GPS data collected from the driver's smartphone or even road-surface based sensors present at the parking spot location, smart parking solutions can be used to identify vacant parking spots by creating real-time parking maps quickly. Whenever the nearest parking spot is vacant, the driver can be notified and using the map present on his phone can be used for faster identification of a parking spot. This saves significant time and effort for the driver while finding the right parking spot.

3. Public Transportation

The data collected from IoT sensors can be used for determining the way citizens use public transport. The public transporters can work on this data to enhance the commuters' traveling experience by deploying higher levels of safety. For a relatively more sophisticated analysis, smart public transportation solutions can be combined with various sources.

4. Basic Utilities

With IoT-enabled smart cities, citizens can save money by gaining enhanced control over their basic home utilities. The IoT technology offers the following approaches towards leveraging smart utilities-

  • Smart Meters & Billing- By having a smart meter network, local government bodies can offer citizens cost-effective connectivity to basic utilities. Smart connected meters are now being used for sending data directly to any public utility via a telecom network, resulting in reliable meter reading. Smart metering results in accurate billing of sources consumed by every household.
  • Determining Consumption Patterns- The smart meters network allows the utility providers to get increased visibility about how customers will consume energy sources. Smart metering solutions demand redirecting resources when needed or encouraging customers to use lower energy/water during shortage times.
  • Remote Monitoring- IoT-based smart city solutions can offer citizens with various utility management services. All these services help the customers to track and monitor their usage while being remotely located.


5. Street Lighting

Smart cities leveraging IoT help maintain and control the street lamps with relatively more straightforward and cost-effective solutions. The streetlights can be equipped with sensors, and connecting them to Cloud platforms helps develop a lighting schedule. These solutions can collect data related to the illuminance of lights, people, and vehicles' movement, combining it with historical data, and then analyzing it gives an improved schedule.

6.  Environment

IoT-enabled smart city solutions allow easy tracking parameters towards a healthy environment to maintain the parameters at an optimal level. For instance, smart cities can deploy sensors at the water grid and connecting them to cloud platforms. These sensors can be used for measuring the pH level, and in case the chemical composition of water gets altered, the Cloud platform can trigger an output.

Another possible use case towards the environment can be used for monitoring the air quality. Here, a sensor cluster can be deployed across the busy roads. These sensors can collect data on the amount of various emitted gases. The Cloud platform can visualize sensor reading, allowing the users to monitor the air quality and use the data to determine where air pollution remains critical.

7.  Public Safety

For enhancing public safety, IoT smart cities provide real-time monitoring, analytics along with decision-making tools. When the data from sensors and CCTV cameras are collected and other data sources, it increases public safety by determining potential crime occurrences. This helps the law protectors to control any crime and track them with ease.

 

Concluding Words

Smart city applications are diverse, having the same form of implementation. IoT, when combined with smart cities, helps in easy connectivity and management of public services infrastructure. Whenever these applications (use cases) are deployed, it reduces costs related to energy offering efficient usage of natural resources, creating safer cities with a healthier ecosystem.

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Author

Rishabh Sinha

Rishabh Sinha

ESDS SOFTWARE SOLUTION LIMITED

Rishabh Sinha is passionate about writing articles on the latest technological trends such as Big Data, IoT, Cloud, AI, ML, Cyber Security. In his leisure time, he loves to read about technology and the latest trends that are changing human and technology ecosystems.

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