There is no general definition for “smart city” but the projects executed in the name of smart city are usually a part of city modernization, typically involves urban planning, ecology, and information technology. In other words, projects that typically involves integration of advanced digital technologies such as IoT into the city infrastructure to create high quality living environments. There are no bundled or standard solution for any smart city, as every city has different infrastructure, population level, modes  of transport, energy & water systems, communication networks and moreover operates on different protocols and standards. In general, smart cities emerge as a n outcome of several smart solutions

Smart Solutions:

Smart Mobility- Smart parking, personalized transportation services, peer to peer ride services, smart traffic management, connected, adaptive connected cars, shared autonomous taxies

Smart Energy - Smart grids, smart metering, microgrids, responsive devices, smart thermal energy storage (STES) based of seasonal trend, smart EV charging infrastructure, energy sharing & coloration and others.

Smart Water Management - Leakage detection, Pollution detection, emergency response, predictive maintenance and others

Smart Buildings - Dynamic power consumption, Usage based cleaning, Usage based billing, renewable energy integration, automated garage entry, optimized energy use to occupancy and others

Smart Education - Digitization of education, personalization of education, adaptive learning & counselling and others

Smart Tourism & Leisure - Crowd management, indoor navigation, autonomous robotic guides, and others

Smart Government - Policy-making, analysis, planning, execution, online public services and others

Smart City – Market Participants

System integrators/Solution providers – Offers solutions across various aspects of the project and provides overall unified end-to-end solutions. (Ex: Accenture, Infosys, Tech Mahindra, and IBM)

Network Service Providers – Delivers collaborative networks to connect assets, systems, and people to provide M2M connectivity, data analysis and other value-added services (Ex: Ericsson, CISCO, Verizon, AT&T, and TATA Communications

Equipment manufacturer – Design, manufacture and supply components/devices such as sensors, switches, smart meters, control equipment and others. (EX: Siemens, Honeywell, Schneider, ABB

Professional/Management service providers – Offers various services which include compliance, consulting, system management, and others

In terms of execution, smart city projects involve four main business models: Build Own Operate; Build Operate Transfer; Open Business Model; and Build Operate Manage. In build Own Operate (BOO) business model the developer builds the city infrastructure and offers smart city services. The maintenance and operation of the services if controlled by the developer. Most of the public-private partnerships (PPP) are built on Build, Operate, Manage (BOM) business model, where developer engages with other partner to develop the smart city infrastructure. The partner manages and operates the smart city services.  In Build, Operate, Transfer (BoT) business model, the developer engages with a partner to develop city infrastructure and provide smart city services for a specified period. After that time period, the operation is handed over to the smart city developer. In Open Business Model (OBM), the developer appoints company or a business entity to build smart city infrastructure and provide rights to offer the services. But the regulatory obligations are set by the developer.

– Delsingh,
ICT – Research Analyst
Infoholic Research