In today’s world, town planners and city developers have started to make a concerted effort to make our cities smarter and more flexible. To make a city truly smart, it is necessary to incorporate latest designs that take into account various factors like modern technology and innovations. Among the different items of smart city furniture are signs and bus shelters as well as intelligent bins. We can also include way finders, advertising signs and signal control boxes. Here is a brief look at how each one of these items can be made smart and the impact it can have on citizens.
Smart benches
Smart benches are small sized solar social hubs that are created to address the needs of the 21st century. These smart benches provide energy and connectivity as well as pertinent local information on the go. They can be installed in parks, public spaces, sports arenas, resorts, universities, city squares and business parks. Smart benches provide ideal seating while at the same time performing functions like collecting rainwater, which can then be used to irrigate a small sized garden. These benches can also be equipped with metal clips that allow you to easily place reading material under the metal clips.
Intelligent bins
Source: https://www.smartbin.com/
Major strides have been made in the disposal of city waste. Though we are still far away from using robots for waste management, we can use intelligent bins, which help to save time and money in the recycling of waste. These intelligent bins make use of a smart box, which is placed on the lid of the containers. This smart box makes full use of cloud connectivity to measure the amount of waste in the bin. Intelligent bins allow the city to pay by weight. In addition, they also help in gauging waste temperatures, thereby reducing risk of a fire. Thanks to intelligent bins, the city can do away with overfills and reduce litter as well as improve the environment.
Advertising boards and bus shelters
Advertising boards, along with bus shelters, are revolutionizing outdoor communications and are paving the way for some very new and advanced concepts. Digitizing advertising spaces and deploying smart city solutions are making cities better connected as well as more intelligent. As objects are becoming digitized, an ongoing evolution is taking place in the field of high street advertising. In Brazil, advertising boards are designed to mine water from the atmosphere and in doing so can produce up to 96 liters of water from air that has 98 percent humidity. This water can and is stored in a reserve tank that is placed beneath the sign.
Signal control boxes
As suburbs recede and cities become bigger, a challenge that every town and city planner needs to address is how to accommodate a large number of cars that are traveling on a fixed number of roads. Modern signal control boxes make use of a better amount of information and along with automated algorithms; they help to keep traffic moving in an even and better way. Signal control boxes can help to reduce traffic delays by up to 22 percent. This kind of reduction can improve the environment as well as the economy of a modern smart city.