A single tweet from a student in Seoul reduced annual car trips by 2.3m
It’s easy to feel alienated from the smart city conversation when all you hear about are hi-tech concepts like self-driving cars and artificial intelligence. But so far, the lessons learned from actually building a smart city have taught us that we have to start with the people first. Mistakes were made when cities bought into expensive technologies before working out what they were going to be used for. In Amsterdam, the citizens are providing not just the ideas, but the funding, talent and expertise to create the smart city solutions that are really needed.
Step 1: The Right People - Citizens, Government and Talent
In 2012 a single tweet from a student in Seoul reduced annual car trips by 2.3 million, saved residents a collective $400,000 per year and made the city safer at night. The tweet was a suggestion to the mayor that call and text data from mobile phone companies could be used to map late night journeys in the urban areas. This data could then be used to introduce better routes for buses between midnight and 5am when the Seoul Metro ceased to operate. When the mayor reposted the idea to his Facebook page, more than 30,000 residents immediately endorsed the plan.
Korea Telecom provided over 3 billion anonymous call and text records for free, which they analysed alongside the Seoul Metropolitan Government. So, if a person had used their mobile phone to make a call from a city centre location and then, one hour later, texted from the outer city area, this would be plotted as a journey. Very quickly they determined the busiest routes and provided ‘Night Owl’ buses to cover them. The pilot was an immediate success and, in addition to the improvements already mentioned, also reduced the number of illegal taxis, decreased pollution, and revitalised the late night economy.
Engaging with citizens is crucial
For a Smart City to work, the first thing you need is people. It's the public who are using the transport, breathing the air and creating the waste. The data they produce is the feedback that is essential to both diagnose the problems and find the solutions. In the past, cities have simply cracked down on unlicensed taxis or relied on manual, time-consuming questionnaires to determine the area's transport is needed the most. The Seoul solution used pre-existing, passive data already digitised for efficient analysis. And let’s not forget it was also a single citizen who suggested the solution in the first place - eschewing the usual process of lengthy and expensive problem-solving meetings in town halls. Crowdsourcing ideas from thousands, if not millions, of citizens who vary in experience and expertise, is better than asking a small panel of government officials.
The right person isn’t always the most obvious choice
However, you do still need the right people governing to coordinate your Smart City. In the Seoul Night Bus case, had the mayor not been engaged with his citizens on social media and actively chosen to share the tweet, the project wouldn’t exist. After running Amsterdam Smart City for six years, Ger Baron suggested to the municipality that they needed a Chief Technology Officer to mediate its Smart City transition. This was both to prevent the needs of private companies overtaking those of the public, but also to ensure that the city was willing to be flexible with regulations to keep up with the pace of innovation. The city rejected the candidates Baron put forward, preferring instead to offer him the post, as he had the exact experience needed for such a new program.
When the municipality of the Dutch capital decided they also needed a ‘Night Mayor’ to combat problems with noise, litter and violence in the city’s party districts, they held a vote. A panel of five experts, music festival attendees and the public, chose to hire an experienced club promoter rather than another civil servant. Mirik Milan already had relationships with bar owners and users, knew the regulations and, most importantly, had a genuine understanding and passion for nightlife. In an interview with The Guardian, he said he wanted to do things differently, as the instinct of city authorities when people complain is to “bring in a curfew, tighten regulations, shut places down, ban stuff. It’s understandable: how can you make good laws if you’re in City Hall with no real clue of what’s happening out there in the night-time?”.
What he didn’t have was the bureaucratic expertise or power, which is why the connection to the daytime mayoral office was so important. Milan told Citiscope that one of his proudest achievements was being able to award 24-hour licenses to venues. He made certain they were out of residential areas and could prove they would curate their agenda, to make sure they were adding cultural value to the city, rather than merely boosting the night-life and tourism economy. Plus, when clubbers were all ejected from venues at 5am, you suddenly had a lot of disruption on the streets. 24-hour licenses allow the night to end more naturally and means when people leave, they are doing so in a manageable stream and going straight home to bed, not to continue the party. Better for both the clubs and residents.
Solutions should benefit everyone
24-hour licenses were only made possible by the reduction of the anti-social behaviour and crime associated with Amsterdam nightlife. Again, the solution came from choosing the right people. The city’s police were too busy to respond to every call and by the time complaints to the municipality were seen, it was far too late to deal with the persons causing the problems days or weeks earlier. So ‘Square Hosts’ were installed. They are trained social workers that could act as a non-intimidating meeting point between the police, residents, clubs and revellers. While their primary purpose is to keep partygoers in order, they could also offer friendly advice to those looking for directions, which club to choose or the nearest toilet. The next stage includes plans to create an app so that residents can relay any issues immediately to a community officer, who will inform the Square Hosts on the ground.
The last group of people you need are the talent, those with the technical expertise to facilitate innovations. In Seoul, evidence had to be collected and analysed by data scientists with an algorithm or AI. The real-time app the Night Mayor wants for citizen complaints will likely need front-end and back-end developers, UX and UI designers. Therefore a wannabe Smart City has to attract talent, inspire ideas and provide support for innovators to flourish. With incentives like City-Data, the Amsterdam Smart City Challenge and Circular Challenge, Amsterdam is actively nurturing change and connecting groups via a single, shared goal - to improve urban areas. Nationally, the Netherlands has ensured it has competitive infrastructures, favourable taxes and a robust international travel framework, which is why several large tech companies like Netflix and Uber have located their EU headquarters in Amsterdam.
For startups, Amsterdam is home to several incubators, accelerators and government-backed schemes like StartupDelta and Startup Amsterdam. Slightly further afield, Delft University is continuing to produce young talent, who work closely with AMS Institute Amsterdam and MIT in the US. And Eindhoven is still considered one of the most inventive cities in the world for hardware. In 2013 it was producing an average of 23 patents per 100,000 residents according to the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development - compared to it’s closest rival, San Diego, who produced only 9.
Step 2: Infrastructure - Connectivity, privacy and security
As we just mentioned, your Smart City will need infrastructure like high-speed broadband, sensors and IoT connectivity before many projects can become a reality. However, it’s second on our list because, in the past, city planners have been known to jump the gun and invest heavily in infrastructure before even knowing what use it will have. That’s why you have to rely on people first to establish the problems and suggest the solutions, so you know what needs building.
But these Smart City plans can rarely work without the network of sensors, nodes and applications needed to collect and analyse city data. Luckily for Amsterdam, the Netherlands government had already invested in high-speed broadband. However, for a vast network like the Internet of Things to work, the metropolis needed a low battery usage, long range and low bandwidth network - and LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide-Area Network) is just that. It allows things to ‘talk’ to the internet without 3G or WiFi.
Connecting objects, devices and people
Founded in Amsterdam, The Things Network is a “global, crowdsourced, open, free and decentralised Internet of Things network”. Their device costs around 20% of most current LoRaWAN gateways, provides up to a 10km radius of coverage and serves up to 10,000 nodes. A gateway is a router between all the things and the internet and a node is a device attached to each ‘thing’ to make it connective. For example, a node can be placed in a canal boat to detect water. If the sensor in the node detects a leak, it will then send an alert wirelessly via the LoRaWAN network to the gateway, which connects to the internet and can send a message to your mobile.
Currently, there are 1380 active gateways, in 82 cities, across 23 countries, on every continent. 24777 developers have signed up and between them have deployed 11444 applications. Not bad when you consider each gateway only costs €200 and coverage for the entire city of Amsterdam was done in just four weeks with just 10 of these. The company have now also introduced LoRaWAN enabled Arduino units for developers and a more straightforward device (node) that already contains temperature, motion and light sensors for those who want to get involved but are less tech-savvy. In the spirit of the project, they will also make all of their code and designs open-source.
Balancing public and private interests
The Things Network is an example of using crowdfunding to avoid bureaucratic delays. When it comes to Smart Cities, the usual government methods for creating policy and legislation can be inefficient. With data being gathered in real time and developments in innovation increasing in pace, it can be challenging to predict or adapt regulations to new trends and changes. Until recently, Amsterdam was still using traffic management models based on statistics that were five years old and no longer relevant since car usage had dropped by a quarter and scooter use had doubled since 2011.
However, a singular vision to help guide urban growth is necessary to avoid the mistakes made by poorly planned growth in the past. The example often cited is the destructive impact of the Interstate Highway System in the USA, which did well to improve transportation between states, but, by tearing directly through city centres, the project also devastated neighbourhoods and caused mass suburban displacement of both people and businesses. And often, the more impoverished citizens are the ones who lose out the most.
Just as Ger Baron, the first CTO of Amsterdam must do his best to balance public and private interests, the same rule must apply nationally and across the world. This is what the United Nations is trying to encourage with their National Urban Policy directive. The policy focuses on the development of a global infrastructure for the long-term future of cities that is inclusive. Which means serving all members of society, regardless of gender, race, wealth, class or if they prefer to sleep or party in the early hours of the morning. It tries to cover broader issues like producing sustainable energy and recycling dwindling stocks of raw materials, but also advise on the smaller problems that are specific to each city like loud music on the canal boats in Amsterdam or finding a parking space in Barcelona. At Eli5, we created a platform for Mobypark, an app which allows you to rent parking spaces in some of the world's busiest cities, including our hometown of Amsterdam. This saves drivers up to 70% compared to some on-street parking charges, an average of 20 minutes finding a place to park and also means that the rented spaces are used to their full potential. Plus, parking space owners can earn a small income from the rental.
Rebuilding trust when it comes to data-sharing
The first word that comes to mind for many when they think about data is ‘privacy’. The public has to feel confident that not only will their information be anonymised and secure within the City Database, but that they can trust the government to use their data responsibly. This means using public data to benefit the city and not being abused to make profits by corporates.
DECODE - or the Decentralised Citizen Owned Data Ecosystem - is a three year, EU-funded project to improve the experience of data-sharing. One of their pilots is due to launch in Amsterdam and Barcelona at the end of 2017, and 1000 testers will be able to select exactly what information they would like to upload about themselves. Significantly, they can also decide how it is used and by who. So they can choose to contribute to a specific scheme about managing waste on their street and at the same time withhold that information from private companies. DECODE will also utilise blockchain technology to ensure information is secure and protect against hacking.
Tom Symons from Nesta, a UK innovation charity that is working on DECODE, told New Scientist, that “people don’t really have control over their data”. DECODE has openly criticised online companies for not sharing data they collect from the public, to benefit society, just as Korea Telecom did with the Night Owl venture.
Step 3: Collaboration: International, national and individual
So now you have the right people in place, the technology, the legal infrastructure, data from your city and citizens and you have your groundbreaking Smart City idea.
Now you need to develop, validate and realise your project. For this, you’ll have to find money and ideally some expert guidance. You can source finances through donations, crowdfunding, incentives, competitions, awards, public sector backing or private sector investment on a local, national or international level.
As The Things Network has proved, crowdfunding can be an immediate solution to financing a project. Another proposal in Rotterdam sought to create a temporary wooden bridge to link parts of the city obstructed by roads and railways after an office block development fell through. Over 8000 donors gave €25 each - incentivised by having their name inscribed on one of the wooden building blocks - and the council approved the scheme. The Luchtsingel Bridge is now 390 meters long and has 18 interventions, to connect the North to the Center of Rotterdam. The Dutch online platform Voor Je Buurt now processes hundreds of thousands of euros in civic crowdfunding donations every year to fund projects that matter to its communities.
Speak to people in their language
With busy and hectic lives of their own, it can be hard to get communities excited about big issues like sustainability. But you can’t just make assumptions about what citizens want. Otherwise, your venture will fall flat. The Carbon Literacy Project think they have the answer. Last year they ran a scheme to get people in and around Manchester interested in Climate Change, eventually recruiting an impressive 4000 people. Their method involves merely focusing not on what you think is important but what matters to the community you are trying to engage with. The example cited in this Amsterdam Smart City article is reducing the number of football fans driving to games, not by telling them it is better for the environment, but by mentioning things they care about like saving money, not worrying about parking, travelling with your friends and being able to share a beer at the game. Or by collaborating with the team itself to get the message out and promote pride in a joint effort to reduce emissions as a collective.
We have now come full circle, back to the people. By collaborating you get more people involved. And more people equals more data. More data means more projects, more experts. And they are going to need the infrastructure and assistance to get their programs off the ground. And all of this makes a Smart City.
