Latin America. Tania Cerda, manager of energy solutions for Schneider Electric, says that everyone wants to go to big cities because they are full of dreams, greater opportunities, diversity, entertainment, more means of transport and, of course, cultural and nightlife. Most of the world's population will want to populate cities in less than four decades from today, the largest mass exodus in human history.
Urban areas are growing at great speed: more than half of the world's population already lives in cities and according to the United Nations, by 2050 70% of human beings will live in urban centers.
Cities have many challenges, problems and areas of work, from which you can pay better attention to the citizen and a better quality in their services. The design of smart cities is one of the solutions to face the challenge of managing and living in increasingly large and complex cities, as the majority of the population seems to want.
It can be said that a smart city is one that makes use of technological advances to improve the quality of life of its inhabitants, however, this concept has a great variety of nuances and multiple interpretations.
A city is known for its efficiency, for the way it manages energy and the availability of it at all times, it is distinguished by the guarantee that everyone has water, the way in which it manages its public services, in which it maintains its buildings and in which it operates the transport system.
Thus, technology plays a fundamental role for cities to be smart through the solutions it offers for an efficient management of the various operating systems of the same, however, it has to be directed and oriented by a government aligned with these objectives.
How is a smart city evaluated?
- Electrical services with smart grid solutions, to manage demand, distribution, measurement, consumption, operational data, etc.
- The number of public buildings that are energy efficient and have implemented a performance contracting solution for on-site energy management.
- Smart grid solutions for managing water infrastructure.
- Integrated intelligent mobility solutions through the network, such as traffic, tolls, tunnels, etc.
- The operation of municipal services, using smart solutions to manage services, such as sanitation, education, food and health, public peace, weather forecasts, parking, street lighting, etc.
- The correct integration and functionality of all the systems of the cities to work better with each other.
New technologies can improve the quality of life in cities, but good resource management is necessary to maintain that quality in services. Cities have to be super models of ease of use and readiness on a massive scale. As populations migrate irreversibly to urban agglomerations, cities must be equipped intelligently and visibly to cope with growing demand.
