PUBLIC
AGENCY
WIRELESS/
WIRED
INFRASTRUCTURE
SOLUTION
PROVIDERS
PRIVATE
FACILITIES IN
PARTNERSHIP
SYSTEMS
INTEGRATOR
ICT AND SMART CITIES
What makes a city smart? There are millions of devices
already deployed in cities with billions more coming that
collect data on traffic, weather, energy, water usage,
and much more.
The Smart Cities Council and the International City/
County Management Association conducted a recent
survey for smart city priorities. This revealed what smart
city program managers and typical city technology
leadership intend to purchase. Almost half of the
responding city managers identified public safety
technologies a top priority, followed by wastewater
16 I ICT TODAY
1. City Mayor’s Office on Public Safety, Chief Innovation or Digital Strategy Officer,
City Public Safety (Law Enforcement, Fire and EMS) Liaison, Homeland Security Liaison,
Transportation Safety Manager, City Energy and Sustainability Officer
2. Office of the Chief Information Technology Officer or City Network Infrastructure
Project Manager
3. Primary Cellular or Wireless Service Provider, including 5G Service Rollout Provider(s)
4. Key Members of Fixed Wireless Service Provider Ecosystem (Cyber Security,
Mobile Device Authentication, Multi-Spectrum Radio Hardware Solution Provider)
5. Fiber Optic Infrastructure/Internet Service Provider
6. Public Safety equipment solution provider for acoustic sensors, perimeter/area protection
(LiDAR, Radar), surveillance cameras, venue entry screening
7. Transportation solution provider for pedestrian safety, vehicle/intersection communications
(V2I), traffic and rail intersection safety, multi-modal public transportation safety
and operations
8. Critical Infrastructure Providers, including Utilities/Energy, Water, Air Quality, Food Defense
9. Private corporation, B2B, healthcare, commercial, retail, property management,
sports and entertainment venue, hospitality (hotels) working groups
10. Systems Integrator(s) delivering most or all the solutions in items (3) ~ (8)
FIGURE 8: Summary of smart city ecosystem and ICT opportunities.
In a smart city, the influencers
closest to the mayor are the
ICT teams delivering primary
data transmission resources,
not the individual stakeholders.
(29.7 percent), ICT telecommunications (26.5 percent)
and transportation (26.3 percent).
There is a trend across the top 1,000 cities to appoint
a Sustainability Executive, Digital Transformation
Specialist or even a Digital Mayor (Figure 8).
To have a dialog with any of these smart city team
members requires skills in optical fiber and wireless
infrastructure, public safety, vehicular intersection
safety, traffic flow improvement, traffic incident
detection management and, of course, putting it all
together on a non-proprietary platform. In a smart city,
the influencers closest to the mayor are the ICT teams
delivering primary data transmission resources,
not the individual stakeholders.
Transportation – Not Just about Incidents
Monitoring traffic patterns could alert city planners
to the future need for a widened lane or new traffic light.
Knowing this information will allow cities to contract
with construction firms in plenty of time, including
detailed information on where new traffic implementations
will be most effective.