Latin America. Francisco Ramírez, Country Manager for Mexico Central America and the Caribbean of Axis Communications, highlights that around the world, municipalities and municipal authorities are working on projects to make their cities smarter places to live. Although there are multiple definitions of the meaning of "Smart City", the main idea lies in using digital technologies to improve the quality of life of its inhabitants, reduce the environmental impact and make everyday services work more efficiently.
In addition, automated urban management, optimized energy consumption, water and waste management, optimal mobility, the reduction of pollution and noise, access to online services in a simple way and the construction of smart buildings that attract tourism and new businesses are essential components to take into account for the planning of the cities of the future.
Undoubtedly, security plays a key role, as it is impossible to develop a smart city where citizens do not feel safe and restrict their freedom of movement and action. On the one hand, there are official crime statistics but the fundamental thing is to also understand the perception of the inhabitants in order to exceed their expectations in relation to their protection. With increasing rates of population density and size in cities globally, there is a clear relationship with the increase in crime incidents and crime rates. To compound the situation, the chances of preventing a crime or arresting criminals are usually lower in large cities due to the lower per capita budget and lower levels of community cooperation with the police. Of course, local and international economic factors also affect crime rates, but it is more complicated to analyze these factors in each city, separately.
The approach based on the safety of people and the decrease of vandalism on properties must be addressed at street level. Multiple locations are already using video cameras to help prevent, detect and investigate crimes. Video surveillance not only allows citizens to feel safer, but video cameras are also used to protect businesses, homes, shops, etc. from possible threats. Beyond security, these devices will increasingly assume the role of smart sensors, providing key data for the development of smart cities such as improving traffic flow or managing the demand for public services.
The reality is that they will be built based on a structure of systems that is composed of four technological layers, with the sensors forming the first. These can be machine-to-machine, wireless and mobile terminals, cameras that record video and audio, and even participatory detection where the community provides data and information, for example, about traffic congestion.
All these sensors connected to an urban network through the communication infrastructure represent the second layer: the Internet of Things (IoT). In 1995, Axis Communications spoke out about this vision with the release of the first IoT devices with embedded Linux, AXIS 2100.
The third element forms the data and applications that converge in a common operating platform and the processing and analysis of the information is carried out. The data collected is converted into intelligence that can be used and the information is more interactive to facilitate the engagement of citizens and their participation in the ecosystem. Finally, the fourth layer is about understanding data, both in real time and historical. Through network cameras such as sensors, new applications will be possible that include the control of the effects of rain or snow, adjusting street lighting according to real light needs and thus reducing energy consumption.
In addition, smart mobile phones and apps allow people to proactively provide information related to city safety and management. In this way, management can be informed about excessive traffic, for example, and use video and analysis to verify the situation, monitor necessary actions, and confirm responses.
The four-layer model may sound complex, but the good news is that existing network video infrastructures can already scale towards a safer city for today and smarter for tomorrow. Camera installations will become the basis of the sensor networks of the future. They will also act as a hub for other sensors to connect to a network of smart devices, for example, flood sensors, weather sensors, sophisticated access control systems, among others.
Many network cameras already include multi-purpose applications for license plate recognition, people counting, and vehicle tracking. This turns them into smart devices that can process data directly from networks and share it. Therefore, they will constitute the backbone of the Internet of Things for smart cities, provided that they are built for easy integration and with an open architecture.
In conclusion, in the future, video surveillance will play a role beyond security, prevention and protection, it will be an open platform for the development of applications and an inexhaustible source of Big Data. After all, a city can only be smart, if we can see it.
