Glasgow has been named the winner of a £24 million ($38 million) prize to fund the U.K.’s Future Cities Demonstrator project.   Its proposal was chosen from 30 city projects submitted for the final round of the competition run by the government-funded Technology Strategy Board.  The level of enthusiasm for the competition reflects a growing interest in smart cities across the United Kingdom.  For example, Bristol has a wide portfolio of smart energy  and digital government projects, and Birmingham has launched its own smart city program.

Glasgow’s proposal is focused on the development of a series of integrated projects spanning health, transport, energy, and public safety.  As with many smart city projects there is a dual goal of improving the quality of life of citizens and boosting the local economy.  The government hopes that the award will help U.K. businesses to develop “integrated urban solutions” that can be exported around the globe.  The proposal for a Glasgow City Management System echoes many of the key themes we have explored around integrated city platforms and the better use of city data.  Glasgow is looking to integrate “urban services and infrastructures (transport, water, energy), using multiple data sources,” and to make that data available through a City Observatory.  It also plans to integrate low carbon energy systems in a holistic view of the city’s “resources, infrastructure, energy demand, and investment.”

In the prize announcement, the Glasgow proposal was singled out as “a strong, local authority-led project proposal in partnership with their business and academic communities.”  Glasgow has a number of existing initiatives on which to build, in particular the Commonwealth Games, which it hosts in 2014.  The Commonwealth Games may not be in the same league as the Olympics, but as Manchester showed in 2002, it is an event that can be the springboard for a range of urban rejuvenation projects, as well as help develop civic pride and a city’s global brand.   It’s also worth noting that Glasgow has developed a comprehensive sustainability strategy.  The Sustainable Glasgow report was developed by the city, academia, and the private sector in 2010 and sets out a comprehensive vision for how Glasgow could reduce its carbon footprint by 30% over 10 years.  One of the interesting elements of both the sustainability strategy and the proposed smart city project is that they accept the serious economic and social challenges facing the city, summed up in the sad fact that Glasgow has the lowest life expectancy of any city in the United Kingdom.

It is important that the Future Cities Demonstrator address the real-world challenges of a city like Glasgow struggling with the challenge of post-industrial decline and a legacy of poor housing stock.  The project, for example, will encompass systems to help tackle fuel poverty and to look at the health issues around low life expectancy.  Other areas to be addressed include the innovative use of technology to improve the City Council’s operations and service provision, and improvements to public safety and the transport system.   Delivering on these ambitious goals would certainly place Glasgow at the forefront of smart city development.  Glasgow’s leaders should also be looking at how Amsterdam and Barcelona, for example, have been able to use smart city initiatives to boost their image across the globe.  Glasgow has the opportunity to become another important hub in the growing smart city movement.

Imagine a megacity so congested that traffic makes it “almost insupportable for purposes of business, recreation and all ordinary transit from place to place.”  A city where the working population faces an arduous and difficult journey to the centers of business and employment, and vested interests and concerns over over-ambitious engineering plans for new transport links are delaying radical solutions to a problem that is choking economic growth.  The answer is to build a new mass transit system that will open up the city and enable it to continue to be an economic powerhouse for centuries to come.  And that’s what happened a century-and-a-half ago, in London.  (The description quoted above is by William Malins, one of the founders of the Metropolitan Railway, quoted in London in the Nineteenth Century by Jerry White.)

January 9, 2013, marks the 150^th anniversary of the day the world’s first underground railway was opened in London.  The next day, January 10, 1863, saw the first rush-hour crush, as 50,000 people turned up for the first service (only half could find places).

Running 4 miles from Farringdon Station to Paddington, the Metropolitan Railway, the predecessor to today’s Tube, was the world’s first underground railway and the first urban mass transit system.  The trains were pulled by steam engines.  The idea of an underground railway powered by steam sounds like an image out of a steampunk novel, but as shown by a recent trial for January’s celebration of the Underground’s birth it was, and still is, feasible.

I am not going to suggest that the cleantech industry should take a back-to-the-future look to steam and coal-power for new approaches to urban transportation, but it’s worthwhile reflecting on the ambition and the vision of those London engineers.  Perhaps more than any other element of its infrastructure, transportation networks define a city: what’s possible, what’s impossible, how the city can grow, and what it feels like to live and work and move around in that environment.  Transport policy is also one of the main levers that city leaders have to shape the future of their city.  As I was researching our new Smart Cities report, to be published in January, it became even clearer that the way we look at transport (and its links to energy policy, building services, and various public initiatives) will determine the success of many of our current plans for smart cities.  As London found, and as have many other cities since, the decisions we make today about transit in the city will have repercussions far into the future.  So city leaders in our new megacities, and straphangers around the world, should take just a moment on January 9 to acknowledge those bold Victorian engineers.

Friedrichshafen, a town of 60,000 people in southern Germany, is probably best known as the location of the original Zeppelin factory.  It is also home to one of the most interesting and long-standing of smart city pilots.  T-City Friedrichshafen is a program developed by Deutsche Telekom and the city council as a showcase for advanced information and communications technologies and the way they can transform urban living.  The program began in 2007 with the deployment of a state-of-the-art broadband infrastructure for fixed-line and mobile communications.  Since then, around 40 projects have been implemented covering six project areas.  A second phase of the project has now been launched, focusing on three core themes: energy, mobility, and health.  The new phase will see T-City engaging with some of the core challenges around the smart city concept, particularly the need for closer integration across services and industries.

Energy efficiency in the form of smart meter and smart home pilots has been one of the key programs in the first phase of the project.  Deutsche Telekom worked with the local utility to deploy smart meters across two city districts. The second phase will focus more on integrated smart grid projects, including virtual power plants and smart grid integration with PVs, micro CHP, and heat pumps in the home.

As well as new energy projects, the next phase of T-City will also include a broader range of e-mobility projects, in particular a ‘triple-play’ approach combining communications, transport, and energy.  Deutsche Telekom is working with Deutsche Bahn, the German railway operator, to provide a fleet of around 30 electric vehicles that will be available for hire within the town.  As with many EV and smart grid pilots around the world, the goal is to better understand the interplay between mobility patterns, energy savings, and grid optimisation in the context of large-scale distributed energy production (Freidrichshafen already has a large number of solar PV deployments). One of the most interesting aspects of the project is the integration with public transit systems: Deutsche Bahn is providing an integrated ticketing and booking scheme that will allow passengers to book their EV at the same time as they pay for their ticket from say Munich or Hamburg.

T-City stands out amongst smart city pilots for the scope of the projects and the long term partnership that has been established between the local council and Deutsche Telekom.   During a recent visit to Friedrichshafen, I saw one of the smart home installations. This was in the home of what are called ‘Futurists’, town residents who are piloting a range of innovative technologies and services and also acting as advocates and communicators for the project within the community.  The system I saw included smart metering and consumption monitoring for electricity, gas, and water, temperature monitoring and controls, integrated home entertainment, and a security system.  Despite teething problems with the system, the homeowner was evidently pleased with the level of visibility and control it provided.  The fact that the system had become part of the furniture is probably the biggest vindication of its usefulness. However, the need to regularly replace batteries in 90 sensor devices presents a good argument for the value of energy harvesting.

The enthusiasm of the Futurists is encouraging, but it also has to be noted that for most of the citizens of Friedrichshafen life has not changed as much as the initial hype might have suggested.  The need to manage expectations has been one of the major lessons of the project. City management in a relatively affluent community like Friedrichshafen is largely about the mundane but important issues of public safety, social services, clean streets, and available parking. The transformation of the city in terms of transport systems, energy conservation, and the redesign of the home environment is a slow process.  For the vast majority of citizens the creation of the smart city is a slow, evolutionary process, not a revolution.

Smart parking management looks to be the next big market opportunity in smart cities solutions.  Pike Research covered the topic in last year’s Smart Cities and Smart Transportation Systems reports, as well as our recent Smart Cities and Transportation webinar.  As my colleague Eric Woods remarked, parking may be a mundane issue, but it’s a major headache for drivers in congested cities – not to mention a potential lever for cities looking to modify traffic patterns and driver behavior.  UCLA professor and parking guru Donald Shoup estimated that 950,000 excess miles a year are likely driven in Los Angeles due to people looking for free or cheap metered parking.

Thanks to the increasing availability of wireless networks, sensors, smart meters, and smartphones, a handful of cities are implementing smart parking systems that can manage parking in real time.  San Francisco was one of the first U.S. cities to give it a try, with help from a U.S. Department of Transportation grant.  The pilot project, called SFPark, was launched in April 2011. The city deployed around 12,000 sensors in curbside and garaged parking spaces.  The city also deployed roadway sensors so they could gather data on whether congestion was affected by the new parking system.  Technology partners included ACS, StreetSmart Technology, and Sensys Networks for the sensors; IPS Group and Duncan Solutions, for the smart meters; and Oracle, for software and the data warehouse.  SFPark created a real-time parking availability data feed and developed web and smart phone apps that map parking availability in real time.

The tool for changing driver behavior, besides providing information, is dynamic pricing.  In the pilot areas, the city varies pricing based on an analysis of demand at various times of day.  The city promised to change meter prices no more than once a month, and by no more than $0.50 per hour lower or $0.25 per hour higher.  Currently, the meter pricing ranges from $0.25 an hour to $6.00 an hour.

I must admit, I was surprised to hear how high the parking price can go.  This brings up one of the potential problems with dynamic pricing.  Not only are people being charged for something that they are used to thinking of as a cheap public good, but the cost can potentially become unaffordable for some people.

So I was also surprised that San Francisco residents, not known for their quiescent nature, haven’t protested. This is likely because they recognize how bad the parking situation is, and also because the city held extensive public meetings to explain the project and incorporate public feedback.  For other cities considering dynamic pricing, I would highly recommend visiting the SFPark website, which has a wealth of resources on lessons learned.

Other cities are trying various forms of smart parking, not all of which include dynamic pricing.  In 2010, Los Angeles deployed a pilot program using technology from startup company Streetline.  Streetline has been on a roll recently, announcing collaborations with IBM and Siemens.  Other major multinationals like Veolia and Telvent are offering smart parking solutions.  As more results come in from pilot projects, this segment of the smart cities market promises to take off.