Learn how smart city solutions use AI, IoT, and automation to enhance sustainability, efficiency, and urban living. A smart city uses information and communication technology (ICT) to improve operational efficiency, share information with the public and provide a better quality of government service and citizen welfare. 01 What is a Smart City? A concept lost in translation? The term ‘smart city’ is poorly defined, which is creating confusion and uncertainty for many UK cities. The variety of views about what a smart city is has resulted in broad definitions with no focus on specific technologies or sectors (see Box 1). What most smart city definitions have in common, however, is that they consider the use of new technologies (usually ICT) and data as the means to solve the city’s economic, social and ... The concept of a “smart city” is not limited to large inner cities; it also includes suburbs and commuter towns with dense populations. Becoming a smart city is an ongoing journey, not a one-time event. It can be challenging for smart city planners to balance the benefits of keeping public data open with protecting people’s privacy.
