On the occasion of the INNOVATIVE CITY event in Nice, the Metropolitan Nice Côte d’Azur and Bosch signed a Memorandum of Understanding to promote joint projects in the field of urban innovation as well as connected and sustainable cities.

From the left: Christian Estrosi, Président de la Métropole Nice Côte d’Azur and Guy Maugis, President Bosch France

To better understand the drivers behind urban innovation, let’s take a step back.

I trust there are three milestones that mark the need for smarter and better connected cities.

Mankind turned into a mostly urban species. While in medieval times cities were small, limited and enclosed by protecting walls, they almost grow infinite today. In 1950, New York was the only city counting more than 10 million inhabitants – today, it is one among more than 25 and the tendency for mega cities is still rising. In consequence, the urban population of the world is bigger than the rural population. By 2050, United Nations projections indicate that the urban population will expand to 6.25 billion. Link to report

The mobile internet has won over fixed lines. In recent times, the number of mobile internet users (e.g. 3G, 4G as well as WLAN and other communications via airwaves) surpassed those who need a fixed connection via cable. Still, billions of people living in cities and billions of mobile devices operated by us do not compare to the connectivity held by the Internet of Things (IoT).

By 2022, approx. 14 billion devices are expected to be connected directly or indirectly with the internet. We humans will be hopelessly outnumbered by connected and networked objects in the Internet of Things. (Note: We consider a device connected directly or indirectly to the internet as a connected device. Other so called “smart devices” like smart phones, tablets or computers are considered to be “user interfaces”. Find more details here.)

But will today’s and future cities, no matter if average or mega city, automatically turn into smarter cities?

Unfortunately, there is no turnkey solution for a smart city – each city must be viewed individually and holistically. Though the good news is: Each city can broadly be divided into five areas of activity: mobility, energy, communication, security and city life. Indeed, these are wide areas, e.g. communication covers improved internal communication inside the city administration up to involving citizen or visitors into communication and leveraging their crowd knowledge. This alone can improve city life tremendously; however, city life also covers areas of such as health, well being and education.

[SOFTWARE SHOWCASE] A city can broadly be divided into five areas of activity: Mobility, energy, communications, security and city life. Watch our showcase “Urbanville”.

Additionally, smart cities also challenge vendors and developers. Just another great product, device or software is not enough. Vendors and developers also need to re-think and change their attitude from a sales driven mindset towards a networking approach. Only together with their ‘city customers’ they can define solutions and strategies to tackle the individual pain points in these areas.

Concerning Nice, Christian Estrosi, Président de la Métropole Nice Côte d’Azur, is committed to lead a digital and sustainable strategy. Bosch will accompany the Mediterranean city on its way to a smart city in the deployment of the Internet of Things. This partnership will facilitate the development of connected systems that are really adapted to the specific environment of Nice in particular in the areas of mobility (e.g. fleet management, eMobility and connected cars), security and energy (e.g. by intelligent building management) – not only to improve the quality of city life but also to generate savings.

One thing is for sure: A city is never completed or completely planned; it always needs to be adjusted, re-considered and re-invented. Today’s cities as well as the upcoming smart cities are a kind of living and dynamic organisms.

How smart do you consider the city you live in? What are your expectations to innovative, smart and connected cities?

The post Let’s hit the road towards connected, sustainable cities appeared first on Bosch ConnectedWorld Blog.

The full article was initially published in German in the 03.2014 edition of Urban 2.0.

Cities are booming, which raises the question: how can we continue to meet urban dwellers’ needs? The connected city offers a promising solution. But this is not a one‑size-fits-all answer – it requires cities and technology providers to put in a lot of strategy work and come up with new ways of thinking.

Cities have always held a powerful attraction for people, yet life amid the hustle and bustle has changed over the centuries. Whereas medieval settlements fit neatly inside a continuous city wall, today’s cities are virtually impossible to contain. In 1950, New York was the only metropolis in the world with more than 10 million people. Sixty years later and the number of such cities has skyrocketed: more than 25 cities around the world easily have that many people, and many are home to several times more. Extreme examples such as Tokyo or Jakarta prove that if anything this trend is intensifying – and the result is that more people now live in metropolitan areas than in rural ones.

Research has shown that cities occupy only about 2 percent of the earth’s surface, but use some three-quarters of its resources. They spew out billions of tons of garbage, sewage and greenhouse gases. How long can these cities keep growing? At what point will they cease to function? How can the city of tomorrow meet the needs of its citizens?

Urban interfaces

We can look at any city from five perspectives: mobility, energy, communication, security, and city life. Developments in all cities fall into these five areas, yet work relating to one is generally done in isolation from the others. Often these so-called “silos” have emerged over decades, and only rarely are there interfaces between them. The fear of losing power – and with it, their reason for existing – is simply too great.

Building blocks: All action areas within a city have to interact to create an attractive living space; source: Bosch Software Innovations, 2014

The city of the future will function only once it breaks through this kind of thinking and increases the flow of ideas among the different areas. To create and use interfaces, these areas have to communicate and interact with each other and with their environments. Only then can a city become truly connected. Bosch Software Innovations is developing such models for the city of the future with the city-state of Monaco. One focus of the collaboration is urban mobility.

Beautiful, glamorous and well connected for the future: Monaco 3.0

Narrow streets

Let’s take waste collection as an example. Since Monaco’s streets are quite narrow and trucks can cause serious traffic tie-ups, the city is very keen for waste collection teams to do their job quickly. At the same time, business owners can’t put the garbage out on the street too early; they don’t want to tarnish the city’s image or block the sidewalk longer than necessary. But how are business owners supposed to know when the garbage truck is coming, or if it’s already been by? Using an app, they can track the location of the connected garbage trucks and put out their trash at just the right time.

Another example is managing parking spaces. If the city networks its parking garages and large parking lots, drivers can use an app to see where the available spaces are. Yet this information isn’t valuable just for those in search of parking. By observing and evaluating the data over longer periods, city planners can better decide where to put a new parking garage or whether to redirect certain traffic flows. They could apply a similar approach to traffic signals and islands.

Better control

The Bosch-Monaco collaboration is also working on improving control of traffic flows. Special cameras equipped with IVA (intelligent video analysis) technology have been installed at the train station. These smart cameras continuously evaluate the recorded video signal and analyze the number of people present. If that number increases, for example after a train has arrived, the system can take appropriate action. Clusters of people around elevators are easier to handle since the system can recognize if an elevator is out of order or can’t hold enough people. All this serves to facilitate the smooth flow of foot traffic within the train station. The system can even actively control the street traffic around the station to help avoid traffic jams or delays.

Metro station in Monaco

The city as a living organism

Monaco and Bosch are working on the connected city of tomorrow: The project will initially focus on mobility.

As cities evolve, they bring new challenges for technology developers and manufacturers alike. It used to be enough just to deliver a good product. But the city of tomorrow demands more. Take cameras, for example. In the past, camera manufacturers simply weren’t concerned with what the city was planning or what exactly they would use the cameras for. Today, the technology has become a solution; city administrators expect to see not just a sophisticated camera, but a business plan as well. That business plan should ideally be carefully tailored to the customer city and its needs. For companies, this means they have to work more closely with their customers and put themselves in the customer’s shoes. The customer-supplier relationship will change as a result.

One challenge that applies particularly to software is the timely processing and analysis of data; after all, a connected city generates at least 100,000 events per second. A city has two basic options for turning itself into a connected city. One calls for equipping things (sensors/actuators) with local intelligence. The advantage of this option is that the system can collect data where it is generated, and will forward it only as dictated by the logic in place. However, the downside is a loss in flexibility should the city choose to install a new or overarching system. The second option is central control: a central platform receives all data and then routes it as needed.

The reality will probably lie somewhere between these two options. Targeted application and the cost-benefit effect will ultimately decide what makes more sense: a centralized or decentralized system.

All of this is still quite a ways off, since in most cases cities lack a strategic structure. What’s needed is a kind of authority, someone to take the lead and lend some shape to the city of tomorrow. This way of thinking is strange to most cities, but if they want to get connected, they have to change how they do things – they need to get out of the silos and into a network.

The post Connected city: Get out of the silos! appeared first on Bosch ConnectedWorld Blog.

Last week, I attended the IoT World Forum in Chicago aimed to further promote the adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT). The event provided many case studies and best practices presented by practitioners and innovators from business, government, and academia.

With Chicago being my hometown, I was excited to experience first-hand how the city’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel intends to “make Chicago one of the most connected cities in the world” and participated in a “Smart City Walking Tour”. A few of my highlights were:

• Smart intersection: Air-quality and traffic sensors capture data to notify approaching vehicles of potentially dangerous situations.
• Connected traffic signal: Signal controllers offer remote real-time monitoring and control of the active phases at the intersection.
• City WiFi: A city network that connects sensors and actuators with a central operations center and with city personnel.
• Connected street lights: Smart nodes enable power to all poles and provide network control over equipment including remote on/off, dimming, energy monitoring, etc.
• Connected buses and shelters: Telemetric information sent by each bus to predict arrival times at each station.
• Connected trash compactor: Solar-powered trash compactors that draw their power from sunlight to compact trash. When full, the cans send a signal to the Sanitation Department.
• Connected retail experience: An app allows pedestrians to receive location-appropriate information as they walk through the city.
• Chicago police command vehicles: Mobile command and control posts integrated with public safety and communications technology infrastructure for increased flexibility in onsite police presence.

It was interesting to see how many projects have already been implemented in Chicago. I actually live in an IoT showcase; that’s pretty cool! Not all participants of the tour seemed to share my excitement; some expressed their concerns about the loss of privacy that comes with sensors and cameras being installed all over the city. I get it and I don’t. Sure, does it feel comforting that the city can track actions of its citizens? Maybe just a little bit. But we are already being watched constantly; street cameras, phones and credit cards are providing real-time data to prevent criminal activity. If an increased level of monitoring improves sustainable living, public safety and mobility, I take the potential loss of privacy.

The connected city movement will undoubtedly continue to gain momentum. It’s only a matter of time until additional cities turn into IoT ecosystems. Until then, I say: Embrace the infinite possibilities of the IoT for your city!  

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Urbanization walks hand in hand with a growing demand for innovative mobility solutions – especially for commuters. Stuttgart is one of many cities aiming to reduce individual traffic and minimize particulate matter by offering a range of environmentally friendly solutions. Under the direction of the main player for public transport Stuttgarter Straßenbahnen (SSB) the project Stuttgart Services aims to promote a model for eco-friendly yet flexible transportation by combining individual and public transport. The tool of choice is the so called Stuttgart Service Card which is developed by 23 partners. What motivates us from Bosch Software Innovations to be one of the partners and demonstrate our know-how? We are committed to lead by example: You will discover a sustainable alternative to individual transport if you want to get around in Greater Stuttgart. In addition you will profit from a link to municipal services (e.g. libraries). I, myself, am eager to try out the new card, as driving in a metropolitan area has become quite a hassle. This way, I’m sure to reach my destination in a fast, stress-free manner whilst joining the age of e-mobility.

On the road to reaching our destination

Recently, the project has reached two major milestones in its developmental phase. At the end of September, the prototype of a B2C platform was finished, an information functionality portal. This platform eases customer access via your smartphone, tablet and personal computer, and allows the customer to filter mobility services by certain criteria. This is where Bosch Software Innovations comes in. Having tailored a Services Brokering Platform for the project, we have created a process without pit-stops for any partners who wish to take part. By the end of 2014 the prototype will be tested and available in the first half of 2015 to everyone who wants to use Stuttgart Services.

Providing a software platform isn’t new to us, but I’m excited to use already existing technology in a whole new context. We are looking at a network approach that connects different mobility partners and, in the future, municipal services. The key challenge for us was bringing together different partners with different development approaches and connecting their IT systems to the brokering platform. The prototype provided us with first insights which we are working on right now.

Another milestone was reached by successfully completing a user-friendly field test in which around 70 participants from a variety of backgrounds tested the technical functionality and usability of the Stuttgart Service Card in daily life. One of the more popular points was the service’s easy accessibility due to the fact that it can be bought cashless with a MasterCard credit card. One swipe gets you wherever you need to be. This will almost dispense with the need for tickets.

Who’s behind it all?

Stuttgart Services is a project of the Living Lab BW^e mobil showcase taking place currently to explore application-oriented mobility solutions, an initiative of the German Federal Government. An overview of all 23 partners involved can be found on the project’s website.

Next steps into the future

The partners, including Bosch Software Innovations, will develop a concept of how municipal services can and shall be technically integrated within Stuttgart Services. By the middle of 2015 the project partners first aim to change commutation tickets for registered members to a Stuttgart Service Card. After this first phase, the card will be available to all commuters. Quite convenient, don’t you think?

The post Stuttgart Services: Say farewell to a congested city appeared first on Bosch ConnectedWorld Blog.

I recently blogged about the Virtual Power Plant (VPP) in the Smart City region of Rheintal. For that post, I interviewed the Bosch project manager about what insights the team had gained so far with the region’s VPP. I’ve now had the opportunity to talk to the manager of the Rheintal project, Dipl.-Ing. Christian Eugster.

Mr. Eugster, how important is the VPP for the region?

Our region is in an ideal situation to achieve the “CO₂-free energy autonomy” goal by 2050. The VPP is an important component of that, since it’s the best way to align energy generation and demand. We can store energy in pump storage facilities, and now the VPP is giving us smart ways to set up the energy system of the future for Vorarlberg – geared toward what people here need and will accept.

How is the VPP integrated in the region?

Don’t forget that the VPP is a software system that runs in the background. People are aware of it and its advantages only if we actively communicate that information. One of the few direct points of contact we have is when car-sharing customers use an app to benefit from optimized charge management.

We kicked things off with our extensive fleet of electric vehicles, making sure that the EVs were integrated into the VPP. This involved two things – finding the best way to integrate the vehicles as consumers, and seeing to it that their batteries get used as “storage capacity on wheels.” To do this we have to ensure that first, the VPP communicates with the vehicles; second, that vehicles can be connected and disconnected; and third, that the charging process can be managed.

What role does the VPP play in the project?

The guiding principle for all initiatives that are part of the Smart City Rheintal project is this major goal of achieving energy autonomy. Since the VPP is a key element in connection with this principle, it serves as a common theme that runs through all three innovation fields. Right now, we think integrating our extensive EV fleet into the smart grid will yield great benefit.

What would you say is the main benefit of the VPP?

In Vorarlberg, hydroelectric power takes to a great extend care of the base load. So unlike in other regions, we’re not talking about using additional renewables to generate base load power.

Our focus is squarely on integrating the many small, pre-existing producers into the overall system to achieve the “CO₂-free energy autonomy” goal – without having to build additional infrastructure. The way to do this is to use smart systems such as the VPP.

Taken together, even small consumers such as washing machines could have a massive impact on a Vorarlberg smart grid.

What avenues do you think the VPP will open up – in the region and for the project, the residents, and the goal of energy autonomy?

One of our top priorities is to get a better sense of user behavior – especially when it comes to EV drivers. That’s why it’s important for us to keep refining the forecasting and optimization methods we use in conjunction with the VPP. We want to use the VPP to start or stop the charging process for vehicles at integrated wall boxes without causing users any inconvenience whatsoever – this is absolutely essential.

We’re also gradually integrating household consumers that are involved in load management into the VPP – for example, in the new housing developments in Hard. The idea is to then turn these on and off like we do the EVs and EV batteries, depending on whether enough electrical energy is available.

Finally, we’re working on pooling performance data for the PV facilities involved and to adopt it in real time. Then the VPP checks how high demand is – whenever there’s not enough demand for what’s currently being produced, it triggers additional connected consumers or activates storage options.

What’s going to happen once the project is finished? How deeply is the VPP embedded in the region?

Once the project is over, we will be looking at how to put the VPP into regular operation and establish it in the region.

The work going into developing VPP systems is a vital step towards energy autonomy and a new renewable energy economy. We have to complete the transition to renewable energy generation. It won’t happen overnight, but we have to think about it now. That way, we can find solutions to steadily increase the share of the renewables we use and integrate the consumers without exceeding supply. We shouldn’t limit ourselves to what pays off today, but also keep an eye on what makes sense for the future. That’s the challenge we’re facing.

In the future, storage of electrical energy will be especially important. Assuming that electromobility will continue to spread, vehicle batteries will be a crucial component in the energy grids of tomorrow.

Who are you working with? What role can Bosch expect to have?

Our recipe for success is having partners from property development as well as industry. Bosch Software Innovations is working with Vorarlberger Kraftwerke (VKW) and the Vorarlberg University of Applied Sciences on reaping the full benefits of the VPP by the end of June 2015.

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Two of my recent blog posts looked at the Virtual Power Plant (VPP) in the Smart City region of Rheintal. So far I’ve interviewed the manager of the project at Bosch and the manager of the Rheintal project at illwerke vkw about the progress of the region’s VPP. I’ve now had the opportunity to talk to the head of the VPP working group, Dipl.-Ing. Prof. Jörg Petrasch.

Prof. Petrasch, where are we with the VPP? What uses and benefits is it already providing?

We can no longer afford to simply adjust power production to meet demand. We have to take the opposite tack and adjust consumption to meet production. The challenge is to adapt thermal loads such as heat pumps, boilers, and air conditioning systems, not to mention electric vehicles (which are also key consumers), so that they can adjust their own consumption or storage function according to what’s available locally from volatile sources, in particular solar and wind power, at any given time. We also have to do this for stationary and mobile storage units.

And this is precisely what we’re doing with the VPP: it is already making sure that we can shuffle grid loads – with the target to match “uncontrollable” power. Take the new neighborhoods and the heat pumps that we’re in the process of integrating. These pumps run only a couple of hours a day. Thanks to the VPP, they now get switched on only when there is an abundance of electricity available – otherwise they remain off. We can make these kinds of optimizations without users ever knowing.

Then we throw in hydroelectric power – which in Vorarlberg accounts for the bulk of the local energy supply and can be regulated quickly and easily – add smart load management via the VPP, and you end up with a smart and comprehensive energy system for the region.

Which challenges did you have to overcome?

First we had to ensure the technology was in place for the devices and the server to communicate with one another – in other words, set up stable access to the features of the integrated heat pumps and boilers via the VPP. Such devices aren’t usually commercially available. Then there are the particular safety requirements for the grid and the consumers. When we talk about connecting the grid and the internet, we’re talking about bringing together two worlds, two paradigms. What counts here is preserving user privacy. The Vorarlberg University of Applied Sciences worked with Bosch to develop a VPP system that provides the relevant indicators (price, actual and forecast output) to consumers that are tapped for optimization – effectively demand side management.

What roles do forecasting and optimization play?

Using the VPP to achieve efficient load management largely depends not just on how prices develop, but how production develops as well. The more accurate the forecast – for example, the output that will be available in two hours, four hours, and so on – the more effective the algorithms that calculate optimum use within the overall system. You have to have accurate information about consumption and how much energy is available on the grid. We’re going to be putting a lot of time into refining what we’ve learned.

What have you learned so far?

If a forecast is off by even a little, it can throw optimization efforts completely off, too, or lead to serious errors. Then you can experience the worst case scenario in which consumption happens when prices are high.

Although it’s a lot easier to integrate household consumers into the optimization via the VPP than electric vehicles, the way you do it remains essentially the same for both, of course. The extra challenge when dealing with EVs is that they are not always connected to the grid and it’s much harder to accurately forecast consumption. Heat pumps, however, are always connected, and we’re able to make reasonably sound forecasts for hot water usage: most of us shower early in the morning or in the evening. So the margin of error for heat pumps is significantly smaller than for EVs.

How do you see energy and the VPP within the context of the smart city?

The idea behind a Smart City is to use a VPP to integrate whole regions or neighborhoods into an overall energy system while also finding common ground for the heterogeneous consumer structure (electromobility, households, manufacturing, etc.) and the interests of the grid operator (vkw). It’s really important to bring the small, private producers together with the large power plant operators and to coordinate efforts to ensure grid stability. The key idea behind the regional VPP is for the average amount of energy needed in a year to be produced locally, which involves finding a way to balance out extreme fluctuations in power generation. In the future, we won’t be able to get around mastering this technology and making it a commercial reality.

Outlook: In your view, what’s the next important step?

I see two steps as being crucial over the next couple of years.

1) To begin with, we need the VPP as a platform for selling electricity generated by decentralized producers. The challenge there is to get trading going on a more local level.

Price on the electricity exchange and measured consumption.
Source: Bosch Software Innovations

2) Then there’s the real need to make accurate forecasts. On a typical day (see screenshot above), the price on the energy exchange can be represented as a jagged line, and consumption as a steady curve. In order to use heat pumps to balance loads – in other words, to smooth out the curves – we have to activate them at the ideal time, namely when consumption and price are both low. A resolution of 15 minutes (horizontal axis) is ample for carrying out this optimization. What’s important is that the price and load forecasts (vertical axis) be as accurate as possible.

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As the Global Program Manager for Smart Cities at the Bosch Group, I have talked to many city representatives and stakeholders in recent years. I’m surprised to see that in many places, city planning is still done the way it was several decades ago: planners go to the traditional city departments such as urban planning, councils, economic development, etc., ask what their needs are and then evaluate them. Yet it’s pretty rare for these departments to actually address all the residents’ needs, not to mention those of other stakeholders such as industry, service companies, tourists, or commuters. What do these individual groups need, and what’s the best way to meet those needs? A detailed analysis that involves all of the interest groups affected – this is the first step toward cities of the future that people want to live and work in.

Active instead of reactive – the city dweller of the future

In many cities, people who live and work there have direct contact with the city administration already, whether it be by paying taxes electronically, sending feedback and complaints via an app, or getting information by calling a hotline. Yet the actions the city takes are very often one-directional and fail to offer a way for people to interact with it directly. Lots of recent documentaries show that people don’t feel as informed as they would like; this gives them the sense that the city is going over their heads when making decisions. There was a statement in one of these documentaries that I thought was quite telling: “What normally happens is, I look out the window, see something being built, and get annoyed that some person somewhere has decided to do this without my input.”

Getting people more closely involved, providing them with clearer information, and giving them ways to interact instills in them a sense of belonging. It also fosters understanding for sometimes unpleasant situations; for example, seemingly endless and nerve-fraying construction work on your commute. Now, whenever the city makes a decision, it can count on stronger acceptance among its people.

Take an example from a completely different area: today’s cities have a wide array of sensors that measure environmental data. Those measurements can then be used to inform residents about the volume of particulates at specific times of day. Other sensors monitor the flow of traffic to adjust the timing of traffic lights and keep traffic flowing freely.

In both of these cases, the use of sensors offers people hardly anything in the way of benefit. They don’t have a way to take action themselves. But linking these areas would create additional benefits. You could, say, inform people about alternative modes of transportation (bus, train, e-bike, etc.) when there is a smog warning or heavy traffic. Everyone can then decide for themselves if they want to use these alternatives or not. This means they have the opportunity to actively participate in what happens in the city (the traffic or dust pollution). Both sides benefit: people get where they’re going faster, and the city can report better environmental values or traffic density. You could also apply connectivity to the parking situation. If too many parking spaces in the city have already filled up, you could suggest that people take alternative routes with public transit. People decide for themselves how to “use” the city and move about within it. Using the city more intelligently also makes them more responsible for how they do so.

One example that perhaps does not affect people directly is the issue of tourism in cities. When the weather’s bad, they all head for the museum – this has been shown to be the case in the UK. If you get tourists to use an app that lists the city’s highlights, then some of them can be directed to a different museum, or given a recommendation to first eat something and then go to the museum. You could even offer rewards for people who act on these recommendations, such as a discount at a particular restaurant. Of course you could also draw this out to manage an even longer sequence of events: e.g. first lunch, then visit the museum, then coffee …. That way, you could also involve local restaurants and cafés. Tourists benefit by avoiding the crowds at the museum and getting a meal for less money. The city benefits because the museum remains a popular attraction, the stores are happy (and some of the revenue goes to the city), and the tourists are happy too. Bosch is currently exploring this angle in a project with the city of York in the UK: I would call it “combining the urge to play with urban planning”. In this two-year project, we will be looking to see if it’s possible to change tourists’ behavior by creating a game that has them use the city more intelligently. The idea is to avoid bottlenecks and crowds before they even occur. Tourists don’t become a burden, but instead are endowed with new value.

What I’ve outlined here so far has little to do with the city’s administrative areas themselves. Instead, it’s the data of the city that’s needed as a central source of intelligence. But who can provide the necessary connectivity?

How industry can play its part

Many countries such as the U.S., the U.K., or Germany are currently undergoing a transition from being focused on technology to being focused on services. That of course also affects industry. It’s no longer just physical machines or things that are being sold; instead, these are more and more being offered in conjunction with a service. I’d like to give you an example of a typical Bosch product that demonstrates how the Bosch Group is moving from a product to a service focus. Our industrial tightening tool comes with a matching software solution that allows you to track the quality of vehicle production in near-real time. Another example where sometimes only the service is being sold, this time from the travel sector, is Airbnb. What does this mean for the long term? Well, in the future, people will no longer primarily buy products, but services. When my children grow up, they will most likely not buy cars, but mobility.

Lots of companies have been working hand in hand with cities for a long time now, for instance in spatial planning, promotion of economic development, or in tourism. As a result, both sides are familiar with each other’s structures and know whom to speak to about what. For these companies, the smart city is more of an evolution. For others, collaborating on the smart city will be more of a revolution that forces them to change their mindsets and adopt new approaches and methods.

I’d like to highlight one group in the corporate landscape for which smart city initiatives hold as much challenge as they do promise: system integrators. These are usually local companies that are responsible for integrating solutions into the city. To take another Bosch example, we don’t sell our camera technology to cities directly, but we sell it to companies that take care of installing and integrating it into the city’s network systems, as well as developing solutions on top of that. Now that systems are becoming more complex via the integration of multiple systems into one solution (e.g. cameras with street lighting and sensors), single system integrators often don’t have the know-how for the complete system and rely on us to provide support. Connectivity adds multiple layers to cooperative relationships.

Reality check: what are today’s companies looking for? Working with the city isn’t particularly profitable. But if industry deliberately decides to “pre-invest” in a city, then companies can be part of lucrative business models over the long term. So how can companies get involved in the city of the future?

Innovative business models give rise to new kinds of collaboration

One approach companies can take here is technological. Its basis can be a platform that connects the “users” of a city (e.g. residents, visitors, industry, service providers, commuters) with other elements of the city: things (vehicles, charging infrastructure, traffic lights, particulate matter sensors), infrastructure (public transportation, parking spaces, attractions, etc.), and services (restaurants, cafes).

But this is still just the technological angle. It’s actually much more important to have functioning business models and determine how these can be tailored to the needs of each city. Let’s turn to the U.S. for a good example of successful cooperation between city and industry:

Imagine a city that has to cut costs. However, its empty coffers are making it difficult to invest in modern, more efficient infrastructure. In the U.S., a model is being tested in which entire city districts are allotted to property developers. These property developers renovate or construct these districts according to criteria defined by the city, such as “economical”, “intelligent”, “safe”. The city gets new and attractive districts for people to live and work in, while the property developers get the opportunity to incorporate various business models. One of these might be security services in residential neighborhoods. These often include security companies that work to keep the area safe. Additional services can be added such as a “follow-me home” function: when you leave a friend’s home or your workplace, the security company can track you to make sure you get home OK. If it receives an alert, the company dispatches a security team that will come to your rescue. The property developer is to the city what a supplier was to traditional manufacturing; here, the developer makes the city more attractive by providing the latest technology and services. This might sound odd to you, but I guess the message here is that due to lack of money and resources, cities are now outsourcing elements they would usually do themselves. This is the reality we have to face.

But it doesn’t all have to happen at once! Just the opposite, in fact. Plenty of cities start off with slow, small steps. After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Check out some examples of smart city initiatives supported by Bosch technology.

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Let’s imagine a modern city in 2020. It is a smart city. Urban planning, ecology, and information technology reach into every neighborhood, to improve citizens’ quality of life.

Sensor-based systems (see also application areas in the graphic below) are already in place in many municipalities and regions all over the world. Before long, smart cities everywhere will be generating tons of data to help you find a parking spot, to conserve water in parks, to monitor transport, crowds, and pollution levels, and to keep us safe.

Of course, not every city has reached that point yet. From a practical, hardware-based point of view, I want to share how far we’ve come in cities from Hoboken to Gerona, from Malaga to Melbourne, from Salamanca to Sydney… but particularly in Europe where the smart cities movement has its roots.

A dream of efficiency

In the first wave of smart cities, starting around 2009, mayors and city managers were excited about adopting sensor technology. It was what they had been dreaming of to monitor air quality, traffic, noise. Sensors would help manage services, to improve, and modernize urban areas. Municipalities listened carefully to the many smart city advantages, and cost reduction was a big driver. And so calls for bids were issued, and won. Contracts were signed, the first pilots and projects were launched, and then… reality set in.

Early on, the challenges came from understanding the limits of technology — sensor placement, over-the-air programming, how to deal with mobile and moving networks to track trams and buses, or the eternal trade-off between real-time data monitoring and power consumption. The biggest challenges had nothing to do with technology. I remember when an elderly lady stopped to ask our engineers what all those black boxes on the streetlights were for, and if they were paid for with taxpayer money. Another time, a city employee actually came down to the street and blocked our installation because he thought it was unsafe. It turned out no one had told him what was going on. As engineers it took us a while to realize this was not a technical discussion, but a political one.

NIMBY

New devices are very visible in the urban landscape, and at the same time the population has never been so well informed. Citizens ask: “What are you doing with my taxes?” People wonder which services were dropped in favor of funding this shiny new project. And we found that you’d better have a good answer, or there will be a firestorm on the social networks, at great political cost. Some resistance can be chalked up to NIMBY — “not in MY backyard.” But it’s not just citizens who worry. Mayors ask more questions because they are more informed. They are concerned with costs and funding, the ability to produce real, useful information and even how to get internal cooperation.

What a mayor is afraid of (source: Libelium)

Early projects brought out the first signs of frustration because there were very few answers. And with that, the smart cities detractors started to criticize. This was not failure but a natural, necessary process of market education: a matter of aligning expectations that can only be set by understanding the context of those projects.

Smart cities version 1: Technology for its own sake

In the first wave of smart cities the goal was testing the technology — not building a business case. This is fine, but the message wasn’t always communicated properly. Add the fact that early smart cities projects were witnessed by city residents shaken by the greatest economic crisis of the new century, we can understand the great pressure on municipalities that led to a phase of “the more sensors, the better.” Political leaders were looking for the spectacular in terms of the number of sensors deployed, but without the proper budget for it. That’s when we started to see to reports with a negative spin, such as “Smart City Santander: Proven Technology, Uncertain Business Models,” by Jennifer Belissant (Forrester Research). Most of the early projects were funded by the European Union, and without any real continuity plan. As a benchmark, a telecom project allocates 15% to 20% of its total yearly budget for maintenance operations. In the early smart city projects, this was not even contemplated.

Our lessons learned for smart cities version 2.0

In the first iteration of smart cities we discovered the technology boundaries, the importance of clarifying requirements, and aligning expectations.

First: We are a long way from commoditization.

As long as projects remain experimental and anchored at the pilot stage with dozens or a few hundred units, it won’t be possible to consider hardware as a commodity. I think the Internet of Things is like a new railway age — hardware is nothing but the tracks. First come the tracks, then come the services…

Second: Interoperability is key.

Services are multiple in a city. There is not just one vendor. With all the new radio and cloud technologies vying to be the single, “go-to” technology, interoperability is key. (That is why we designed Waspmote a sensor platform that connects +100 sensors to different cloud solutions using +20 communication protocols.)

We also found that:

• Installation and maintenance matter.
• Sensors have to be calibrated and replaced, so we made them easy to install and reprogram.
• Quantity is not as important as Cities today appreciate accuracy over price.

In smart cities version 2.0, the citizens are driving this time. They demand quality-of-life indices. Lighting, energy, water, transportation are crucial; air quality and noise pollution touch everyone acutely. Sustainability has moved to the forefront and so has the concept of urban resilience, the ability to recover quickly from risks stemming from climate change or other disasters, in our cities, and urbanized regions.

Actions initiated by citizens give rise to ad hoc, grass roots efforts, where citizens charge themselves with detecting risk. Smart cities and the Internet of Things allow people to interact with their environment and the city and regional governments in new ways. A case in point is detecting radiation in Fukushima.

Open data initiatives make municipal activities transparent. I think this is an important guarantee of democracy, and could be the greatest legacy of the IoT.

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12,000 new residences, 5 million square feet of commercial space, and 350 acres of parks and green spaces – these are just three examples of the impressive figures resulting from “The Shipyard Communities”, a FivePoint and Lennar development project in San Francisco. Together with Bosch, FivePoint is working on intelligent solutions to ensure that the development of the community is climate friendly. The initial phase focuses on solutions in the areas of connected mobility and efficient living, with the aim of making the lives of residents as pleasant as possible.

Kofi Bonner, Regional President of FivePoint, gave a talk on “The Shipyard Communities” at the #BCW16. I present this project below.

The Shipyard Communities

“The Shipyard Communities” pools the activities at “The San Francisco Shipyard” and “Candlestick Point”. The San Francisco Shipyard community is located in a long-dormant shipyard in southeastern San Francisco. As early as 1999, Lennar won the right to develop the area, which it did very successfully: the first families moved into their homes in 2015. Currently, another two families are joining them every week. Across the basin at Candlestick Point, where the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers played their home games until just a few years ago, a new shopping and entertainment district is emerging, with shops, workspaces, and a film and art center. This is to be a place where innovations are created, as well as better, more secure, and connected communities.

“It’s a place where people will live, a place where people will work, a place people will create, and we believe that they will also entertain there. That is the notion that stands behind The San Francisco Shipyard.” (Kofi Bonner on “The Shipyard Communities”)

The San Francisco Shipyard community is located in a long-dormant shipyard in southeastern San Francisco.

An app offers localized, real-time information

At the core of the community services is the Smart Community app, developed in collaboration with Bosch Software Innovations. This app allows residents to access localized, real-time information so they know exactly what is happening around them. Take mobility information, for example: they can see where the community shuttle is on its route between the city and The Shipyard Communities, or get details about local bus and train connections. In addition, the app connects residents with local businesses, giving them news or information on events and special offers. It also connects community members and residents with each other, providing seamless access to the community website and the blog. Community members, residents, and visitors can customize the app according to their own needs and desires. For example, someone who is interested in the local art scene, but less so in local sporting events, can subscribe to notifications accordingly.

The community administration, too, can interact with community members and visitors. For instance, administrators use the app to notify residents about community events. Residents, in turn, will be able to contribute to the safety of the neighborhood by reporting images or videos to the security staff.

The Smart Community App allows residents to access localized, real-time information so they know exactly what is happening around them.

Enhancing mobility throughout the community

At Candlestick Point, solutions are being developed for energy- and cost-saving transportation. A connected-parking solution is currently being explored in order to help drivers in finding somewhere to park by guiding them straight to the nearest available space. This not only saves them time, it also reduces traffic in the district. Another goal for the future is to have smart cars that can park themselves. As they require less room for maneuvering and can park very close to adjacent cars, this will allow for better use of parking space.

There are plans for a local DC micro-grid, connected with a software platform, to supply electricity for the lighting of the parking garage re-using solar energy production.

The four areas in which FivePoint is working with Bosch in the context of The Shipyard Communities can be summarized under the heading “connected life.” In addition to the Smart Community app and mobility solutions, there are already specific approaches in the area of connected energy and security solutions.

Collaboration to create brand-new urban communities

“The Shipyard Communities” offers FivePoint the unique opportunity to help develop the city to the southeast. FivePoint wants to do so using a smart approach, and plans to continually reassess how and what it is building for the future.

The post Building the next communities in San Francisco appeared first on Bosch ConnectedWorld Blog.

Apps for connected parking, intermodal mobility or security solutions: Smart city services and IoT smart city projects strive to enhance the quality of life in our cities.

A variety of the diverse service providers rely on various platforms to deliver their services.

Now imagine a smart city, where there would be only one platform for smart city solutions. This platform would provide cities with an ecosystem that providers could use to conveniently market their data and services. A dream of every city authority.

But, so far, there is no one and only platform that is able to cater to a city’s needs as part of a smart city solution. As a result, smart city projects are left with the significant headache of successfully connecting a variety of platforms, things, and users to ensure platforms are interoperable.

However, now a solution may be in sight. The BIG IoT (Bridge the Interoperability Gap of the Internet of Things) project aims to help. The task: developing technology solutions and prototypes that promote the interoperability of IoT platforms in and among cities. The goal of the 12 project partners is not to develop another platform for cities. They aim to develop concepts and techniques that facilitate semantic interoperability among existing platforms. In the long term, this will encourage open and dynamic IoT ecosystems.

Semantics come first

From charging stations to connected parking and security solutions, a variety of service providers rely on platforms to deliver their services. Each platform uses a proprietary data model and has its own particular interface. This one most often requires onerous integration work to be able to interact with other platforms.

For this reason, the project places a particular emphasis on improving information semantics. This is about describing information in such a way that it can be understood and processed by a variety of platforms. This data serves as the basis for offering higher-value applications and services. Another focus of the project is on developing a prototype marketplace. Platform operators can use it to interact with one another and trade their IoT data and services.

Through its marketplace concept, BIG IoT aims to provide cities with an ecosystem that providers can use to conveniently market their data and services , and to more easily develop new platform-independent IoT solutions. It is a way for data and service providers to monetize the resources at their disposal.

Pilot projects in three regions

This initiative goes far beyond concepts: it also features multiple pilot projects. They demonstrate the benefits of the BIG IoT marketplace and to showcase the technologies developed. This will help to inspire the development of new IoT solutions for residents and tourists. As an example, the project partners are working on an app for intermodal transportation. This app will show users in Wolfsburg and Berlin the best mode of transportation for their selected journey. Another app hopes to display available parking spaces across cities, and to guide users to the next available space.

The conduction of these pilot projects takes place in three separate regions: in the cities of Berlin and Wolfsburg in northern Germany, in the Spanish city of Barcelona, and in the Italian region of Piedmont. The intention is to demonstrate that future IoT applications are capable of working across countries.

Simple communication with IoT marketplaces and platforms

The project will also be defining a BIG IoT API. This makes it easy for developers to communicate with the BIG IoT marketplace and other IoT platforms. Thanks to the API, users will be able not only to offer their own data and services but also to gain standardized access to the data and services offered by other platforms.

The vision is that developers will be able to use the marketplace to choose between open, free-of-charge, and paid IoT resources that vary by factors such as their data scope. Project partners are also addressing how payment might be organized for paid resources. In a new approach, they are currently considering automated agreements and billing procedures straight from the marketplace.

From concept to prototype solution

This project is the initiative of a consortium coordinated by Siemens. It has the aim of establishing an IoT ecosystem for applications in Europe’s cities. Development and definition of the overall architecture is headed by Bosch. We are also contributing the software platform, which has already been employed on the app level, for instance in the San Francisco Shipyard project.

Our objective is both to expand our own platform and to enter into strategic collaboration with other platforms.

In a specific prototype project, we hope to demonstrate how the software platform, which in this case acts as a proxy for a variety of data sources from the city of Wolfsburg and the Universities of Clausthal and Aalborg, can work automatically with the platform of the traffic information center in Berlin.

The developed technologies are not only relevant to the city, but can also be applied equally successfully to other areas of the IoT.

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