Opinion

Smart technology to meet the challenge of creating liveable cities for the future

September saw North America’s first smart cities week.  As mayors and city leaders from across the US descended on Washington to discuss innovations in city infrastructure development, Walker Kimball, regional general manager for Bechtel’s infrastructure business in the Americas, explains the implications for cities everywhere. 

Walker Kimball, regional general manager for Bechtel’s infrastructure business in the Americas

The smart city agenda is about embracing innovation and leveraging it to gain efficiencies and increase livability. As cities grow in scale and significance, city leaders are recognizing the need to incorporate innovation in order to meet the long-term challenges of the future, whether urbanization, resource constraints, population growth or extreme weather patterns.  And innovation in this context means looking at how to harness new technologies and data analytics in order to achieve a better return on investment within our cities.  

"By integrating data into our lives and into city infrastructure in this way we are also now able to be more efficient in how real-time data is delivered to those people who need to act on it"

Let’s consider maintenance as an example.  We are already able to make use of technology that allows us to build data receptors right into the infrastructure from the outset.  This in turn allows city authorities to understand the current state of an asset, and when and how it needs to be maintained.  Whether the asset in question is concrete, pipes or airflows, we can now understand how the piece of infrastructure in question is performing.

Without that information, cities have historically set maintenance schedules based on time, not necessarily on the performance of the infrastructure itself.   

Take this to an even more basic level of having the water, gas and electric usage in a household more visible to the user , enabling them to directly develop and implement strategies to reduce the demand on resources. It’s a basic example but the readily available data starts to change behaviours in a positive manner and gets everyone involved.  

By integrating data into our lives and into city infrastructure in this way we are also now able to be more efficient in how real-time data is delivered to those people who need to act on it – individuals or community leaders. By connecting the data producer, either to a piece of infrastructure or to an individual producing the data, and then passing it to a data analytics centre, it can quickly be converted into action by city departments. 

"Resiliency is not just about strengthening physical infrastructure, but also about building in redundancies"

The action in question might for example involve changing the traffic system on a bridge, reducing power flows, or raising a seawall.   

And it is not just today’s cities that are exploring smart technologies - there are implications too for new city developments.

There is a project we are working on in Saudi Arabia at the moment called Waad Al Shamaal. It is a brand new city for around one hundred thousand people being planned from the ground up and will have facilities such as sports and entertainment, fire and safety services etcetera built in right from day one to create efficiencies and deliver better value and livability. 

In Dubai, the Mall of the World project under consideration is, in fact, its own sort of self-contained city with power generation, amusement parks, rivers, and transport that will utilize and push the boundaries of using innovation and technology.  This will be an excellent opportunity for everyone from the master planners through to final operations and maintenance to collaborate and build in those latest technologies to work towards establishing the best return on investment for the city and its residents.

To coincide with smart cities week, Bechtel has launched an online guide for city officials and planners that focuses on how to address urban infrastructure needs from the standpoint of resiliency. Details here

Finally, smart cities are also looking at innovative ways to ensure that urban infrastructure is sustainable and resilient.  Resiliency in this context is not just about strengthening physical infrastructure, but also about building in redundancies into the planning of various services, whether public safety, transportation, waste removals, deliveries to your home, power distribution, or communication distribution. The result is that no matter what is occurring, such as power outages, the systems as a whole continue to function. Data is again critical here, as it gives us information about how to reroute, and how to use the redundant systems.

To coincide with smart cities week, Bechtel has launched an online guide for city officials and planners that focuses on how to address urban infrastructure needs from the standpoint of resiliency Click here for details

We see this as a great forum to get people energised, get them thinking about adding value and making us more efficient as individual consumers, communities and nations.  

Walker Kimball is regional general manager for Bechtel’s power, communications, and transport work in the Americas.  He has over 30 years of experience in the international construction industry.

If you would like to contact Antony Oliver about this, or any other story, please email antony.oliver@infrastructure-intelligence.com.