FEATURE: SMART CITIES
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Advantages of being a smart city
Yanbu Industrial City is starting to enjoy many benefits. The road maintenance cost has been reduced by 20 %; the garbage clearing efficiency has been improved by 50 %; the overall cost of the public lighting system has been reduced by 30 %; and the utilisation of public parking spaces increased by 30 %.
RCY will continue to deepen its collaboration with Huawei and leverage new technologies to enable citizens to enjoy better public services.
Dr Alaa Nassif said:“ The Smart City project has proven that our Royal Commission is visionary. We are on the right track and all will benefit from the Smart City project, including the government, enterprises and individuals.
ALL WILL BENEFIT FROM THE SMART CITY PROJECT.
Smart energy efficiency monitoring:
RCY has decided to reduce power consumption in office areas and set a good example to encourage citizens to enhance their awareness of power conservation.
The energy consumption sensors in office buildings can collect power consumption data on each area in real time. Then, diverse management approaches based on power consumption data comparison can be taken to improve government staff’ s awareness of energy savings and promote reasonable power consumption.
The sensors can also remotely control the power supply. During non-working hours, the sensors can be remotely controlled to shut down the air conditioners and lighting devices for more energy savings.
Crowd density analysis:
Monitoring Wi-Fi signals can accurately report the distribution and flows of people, allowing city authorities to closely follow situations and take necessary measures in a timely manner in the case of any emergencies.
Smart manhole cover:
As an industrial city experiencing rapid growth, Yanbu has a large number of pipes, valves and connectors installed underground.
The manhole covers for accessing these facilities have become a focus for security measures to protect the underground facilities from becoming targets for attacks.
The Smart Manhole Cover Solution provides remote control over manhole covers. The covers can be opened only when maintenance is required, preventing unauthorised access.
Different types of sensors such as hazardous gas detection and water permeation detection sensors can be installed on the covers for different types of manholes, monitoring overflow accidents in real time and ensuring the safety of personnel inside the manholes.
“ Smart city construction not only greatly improves Yanbu’ s public service level, but also enhances its capability of attracting high value-added investments.
“ With deeper development of the smart city project more and more young people choose to work and start a new life in Yanbu.
“ Both the employment rate and the population are increasing in a healthy and orderly manner. The co-operation and achievements of the RCY and Huawei for Smart Yanbu Industrial City also establishes a good model for other cities.
“ Huawei leads a robust ecosystem. Through flexible application of new ICT innovations, we can now sense, analyse and integrate more city operations, enrich key information required by the management system, and make smarter, faster responses to various requirements, such as city governance, public services and business activities.
“ I believe that such a data-driven city development path can inject new energy towards improving people’ s lives, optimising city operations and management and enhancing business with other cities around the world.
“ It will definitely create a better city life for human beings.” •
60 INTELLIGENTCIO www. intelligentcio. com