Energy efficiency, urban mobility, and the rational and sustainable use of resources are the keywords for an intelligent city. Here are some of the solutions Bosch is proposing for smart cities.
Cities will be the social laboratories of tomorrow. Entire communities will live in metropolises, and by 2050 more than six billion people will have chosen cities as the place to live and work. For this reason, cities will need to be capable of providing services and guaranteeing a better quality of life.
Cities today consume 75 per cent of the energy produced worldwide. Of this, 40 per cent is attributable to buildings, principally for heating and cooling. The energy efficiency market is one that could generate 11 billion dollars in savings, according to Bosch.
According to the Stuttgart-based company, which provides a wide range of smart city services globally, in the near future cities will require digital administration. "In terms of mobility, these solutions include environmental monitoring, networked parking, fleet management and intermodal transport," Bosch writes in a press release. "For energy, the range includes virtual power plants, systems for energy-efficient heating, hot water production and cooling, as well as energy storage. Security solutions include systems for fire protection, access control and video surveillance.
It is in the Californian city that Bosch will be testing one of the largest urban regeneration projects since the 1906 earthquake: a true transformation of The San Francisco Shipyard area and Candlestick. The project will involve 12,100 homes, more than 150 hectares of parks and open spaces, approximately 460,000 square metres of commercial space for research and development, production facilities and offices, and nearly 300 artists' studios.
The figures provided by Bosch are noteworthy, in particular the one stating that "thirty per cent of urban traffic is generated exclusively by drivers who cannot find a free parking space." For this reason, in its home city the German group is testing a pilot project with the Verband Region Stuttgart, in collaboration with the regional mobility authority. Over recent months, Bosch has installed around 2,500 sensors across a total of 15 park-and-ride car parks located along both commuter rail lines serving Stuttgart. When a car is parked, within a few seconds the parking indicator on the internet turns red, signalling that the space is now occupied. When the car leaves the car park, the corresponding indicator turns green and the space becomes available again — not only physically but also virtually within the application. The project is set to become operational at the beginning of 2017.