Smart cities and road safety 

Smart cities and road safety 

What is a smart city and how does it work? 

There is no doubt. The layout of cities in the last decade has been evolving at a rapid pace, bringing forward new challenges and new technologies. Lately, we have been mentioning the topic of ‘smart cities’ without referring to clear examples.  

 Part of the reason for so much confusion, has to do with the fact that the term itself covers a lot of topics. What is a smart city then?  A smart city could be defined as a digitally enabled city that uses the data of the urban community to improve the lives of its citizens and proposes innovative solutions to tackle challenges, foreseeing opportunities and improvements.  

Usually, it encompasses the use of smart energy systems, smart transportation, smart buildings, digital citizenship and governance. 

How does a smart city work? 

There is no clear protocol that a smart city must follow in order to gain this title. In the life of a city there are many different realities: economy, mobility, environmental resources, housing policies, administration and governance, infrastructure, security measures. Smart cities are those cities that implement some form of innovative resource to manage one or more of these aspects. The long-term vision is to standardize the use of innovation to make the city “organic”, a city where the different realities coordinate spontaneously thanks to automated processes. 

Furthermore, the aim of the smart city is to be as energetically and economically sustainable as possible. This being the direction, we are trying to take in our current societies.  

What are the most smart “smart cities”? 

If several of the kingdoms of the Italic Peninsula were seen in the Renaissance as role models in terms of talent and economic prosperity, the same cannot be said about contemporary Italy. Afterall, smart cities are much easier to “create” and design around new urban conglomerations. It is less challenging to start something from scratch, rather than making changes to centuries-old buildings and the Italian bureaucracy. In a human metaphor, it is just much easier to learn something new when you start as a child. 

The ancient conformation of Italian cities prevents digital transformations to happen. Even at the administrative level, the Italian bodies find themselves having to face the static nature of a rather complex bureaucracy. The fact remains that even in our beautiful country there are examples that give us hope. 

Among the Italian capitals, Milan was for several years, the only one that got recognised for its smart management of the city. Then came 2020, and a virus that changed our every-day life, and allowed our beautiful city of Florence to stand out, and stimulated its creative talents, with rather satisfying results. In fact, in the last year, it has positioned itself as the smartest of the Italian cities. 

Smart cities around the world 

Saudi Arabia is proving how easy it is to create smart cities when in possess of the advanced technologies. Their project is called ‘Neom’, a totally sustainable and digitized “artificial” city. Similarly, Japan does not want to be left behind and thus it has in the plans to build Fujisawa Sustainable Smart Town, a city that will develop itself around lifestyles rather than technologies, which will be a way to create the best environment possible

Among the “standard” cities, Singapore is the one that won the title of the Smartest City of the World according to IMD’s inaugural Smart City Index. Many are the projects related to mobility; from self-driving shuttles for University students to autonomous fleet to help elderly and disabled keep moving.  

In Europe, Copenhagen is positioning itself as an open-air laboratory for smart solutions, in particular in the field of open data and data sharing. 

Smart cities, the future and road safety 

What role do we play in all of these scenarios? Traffic management is an integral part of any smart city plan. Here at Sodi Scientifica we are committed to keeping alive the innovative spirit that has distinguished us since our foundation by being ready to take on new challenges and trying to implement new technologies when developing products for road control and safety. At the same time respecting the citizens’ privacy. Here at Sodi Scientifica, we are dedicated to investing part of our capital in research and innovation, while at the same time giving priority to the usability and robustness of our products. 

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