The life we lead today has changed a lot compared to that of many years ago. New technologies have changed daily actions such as work, travel, communication, the way we live our home and much more.
As is happening with places of living, which are increasingly Smart Homes, new technological solutions are also being incorporated into urban spaces with the aim of making our cities Smart Cities.Urban sociology affirms that behavior, positive or negative, towards urban space is strongly influenced by the way people feel within it. For this reason, an urban space must be easily understood by users, equipped with adequate spaces for use and accessible. The transformation of a city into a Smart City revolutionizes the way of furnishing public space. Elements such as benches, canopies, totems, waste bins, etc. become a perfect mix between design, research and innovation, and incorporating technology into public spaces is a prerequisite
for making them comfortable and efficient.
What does it mean to make urban furniture smart?
Equipping the city with intelligent solutions aims to make life easier and to make everything more functional. Smart street furniture increases the accessibility of urban space, in particular to people with disabilities, who often need assistance even for “simple” actions such as road crossing and who, thanks to technology, could live an experience of using public space entirely focused
on safety.
For example, in England, systems have been designed and built capable of combining a tag with the disabled user that allows him to access a digital platform where he can choose and activate functions, such as making street lights brighter or increasing the duration of the green light to cross the road.
There are many Smart Street Furniture, some are already part of our daily lives, others are entering the urban reality depending on how much the city is being transformed into a smart city.
Crossing the street with smart traffic lights is now a routine in many cities. Smart traffic lights are capable of triggering giving the green light or stopping depending on the flow of cars on the street and buses. Equipped with countdown displays for pedestrians and motorists
.
Thanks to this approach, the classic urban furniture product, such as a bench, is transformed into a multifunctional seating element, that is, an intelligent bench. In 2013, the Politecnico di Milano patented a smart bench model equipped with a series of devices such as:
— power outlets for charging electrical equipment;
— SOS system to activate emergency signals;
— NFC proximity communication systems;
— Wi-Fi system;
— rain sensor;
— anti-theft and anti-vandalism system
.
With the smart bench, the user can take advantage of a seating device that, in addition to its primary function, has additional features capable of improving seating devices.
Then there are the smart canopies that, while protecting the citizen who is waiting for a bus or a tram from the sun and heat, act as catalysts for solar energy to transform it into electrical energy that powers the displays that may be incorporated into the shelter itself or other systems belonging to the public space, such as bollards, waste bins intelligent etc. A real example is the Sun&Shade project by Carlo Ratti Associati, a solution halfway between energy infrastructure based on a photovoltaic system and an element of urban furniture. The canopy is able to control the sun's rays and to store and transform their energy and at the same time to control the level of shading
and natural cooling underneath.
Another example of smart furniture is certainly that of smart streetlights, equipped not only with LED lights but also with 4G connectivity and small cell technology.
It is estimated that mobile data traffic will grow exponentially; for this reason, telephone operators are acquiring new spaces for small cells in public areas in order to provide the best possible broadband coverage to their consumers. One of these spaces is represented precisely by smart streetlights, able on the one hand to illuminate the streets and make them safe, on the other hand to improve data capacity for smartphones. The smart streetlights are remotely controlled through a cloud-based management system that ensures greater energy efficiency of the public lighting system
.
In the 21st century city, which aims to become a Smart City, the type of travel is changing in favor of green mobility. The e-Bike, for example, is having an ever greater impact; obviously, to allow and promote sustainable mobility, the city must equip itself with charging stations for electric bikes. E-bike electric charging stations can be powered by energy coming from other smart furniture such as the canopies mentioned above
.
In addition to benches, streetlights, traffic lights, bus and tram stops, street furniture includes traffic barriers, bollards, mailboxes, road signs, taxi stations, public toilets, fountains, public sculptures and waste containers. Every single element is the subject of study and research for the creation of a smart version. It can therefore be said that the urban furniture of the future will be increasingly smart and influenced by artificial intelligence, and the concept of smart city will increasingly condition and integrate with the urban public sphere. All this with a view to creating solutions capable of providing useful services to citizens and improving their experience of using public space
.
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