Data streams and city dreams: how real-time data is transforming urban living

Countries around the globe are grappling with the challenges of accommodating booming populations, with one in seven people globally set to live in urban areas by 2050. The strain on urban infrastructure is growing increasingly apparent, from jammed highways to overloaded waste management systems and inconsistent transport services.

But amidst these struggles, a transformative revolution is brewing. Enter the era of smart cities, where cutting-edge technologies like real time data improve residents’ quality of life.

Living in the data-driven city

Imagine living in a city where traffic flows seamlessly, guided by an intelligent transportation system that captures information in real time and adapts to changing conditions. Picture smart street lighting systems that operate only when required, saving energy and reducing light pollution. Envision a neighbourhood where overflowing bins become a thing of the past. These are not scenarios from a distant future but are realities of cities that have utilised the power of emerging tech upgrades.

In this new urban landscape, a network of sensors and cameras is implemented to attain real-time data, which is stored in a central system. This framework can analyse and optimise traffic conditions and the routes of waste collection trucks.

Smart city adoption and adaptation is gaining momentum in Australia, with over 40 projects in the planning or execution phase. For example, in the city of Newcastle in New South Wales, the council is rolling out flexible infrastructure that includes smart elements such as smart lighting, smart parking, smart waste management, traffic analytics and environmental sensing. Data generated from these applications will be used for decision making and improving liveability and sustainability of the city centre.

Further abroad, in Wales, Japan and Germany, trials have been carried out to test the innovative ‘demand-responsive transportation’, which enables travellers to find fellow passengers who are heading in the same direction, thereby reducing the number of underutilised public transport vehicles on the road. In Barcelona, smart lighting systems have slashed energy consumption by 30%. In San Francisco, a smart bin trial using LoRa-WAN-based smart sensors has resulted in an 80% reduction in the number of overflowing bins on the street. More progress is on its way, with IoT innovations being explored further to correctly identify the material, quality, and age of waste items.

These breakthroughs are more than just technological marvels; they demonstrate a fundamental shift in how cities operate. By harnessing the power of data, cities are now on the run to make urban dwellings sustainable and responsive.

A challenging road ahead

But the road to a smart city future is not without challenges. Older data processing methods often struggle to keep up with the constant demands of urban applications with smart city applications typically relying on large volumes of heterogeneous data sources, all needing to be processed in real time.

The standard protocol for IoT applications, MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport), excels at lightweight communication between thousands of clients in unreliable networks. However, it wasn’t designed for data integration and requires additional technology for stream processing. Without this, data integration is pushed to batched processes on downstream data stores, preventing the real-time processing needed for many smart city applications.

Another critical challenge is scalability, fault tolerance, and deployability. The volume of data generated by smart city applications can fluctuate wildly — think of the difference in data generated during rush hour versus the middle of the night. Systems need to be able to scale elastically to meet this variable demand while maintaining fault tolerance. They must also be deployable across various environments — at the edge, in data centres, and across public and private clouds. This flexibility is crucial for preventing data silos and allowing engineering teams to choose the most appropriate environment for their application.

Data streaming becomes the conduit

For smart cities to be truly effective, information must be continuously processed as it’s generated or received. This is where data streaming has emerged as the gold standard for smart city and data-intensive applications. In the corporate world, 86% of IT leaders are prioritising investments in data streaming, and it’s clear why data streaming unlocks real-time analysis and response. In urban environments, it becomes the central nervous system for all things smart. This technology will only become more crucial as data creation accelerates beyond what legacy models can handle.

As countries navigate towards the future of smart cities, it’s crucial to remember that technology is a means to an end, not an end in itself. The true measure of a smart city isn't the number of sensors it deploys or the volume of data it processes, but how it uses these tools to improve the lives of its citizens. The smartest cities will be those that harness the power of real-time data to serve their citizens better.

Top image credit: iStock.com/metamorworks