Page 161 - Shaping smarter and more sustainable cities - Striving for sustainable development goals

the appropriate period when investment should take place. A clearly established plan of action will
be the guide for development of actions and strategies. A strategy will be designed which has quick‐
wins, which will be instrumental in the creation of public and private support needed for the success
of SSC initiatives and systems such as:

a) Smart Sustainable Cities Services
Cities provide many different services to its citizens, including water management, energy,
transport, waste management, healthcare, education and security. The efficiency of these services
can be significantly improved with the use of ICT technologies, creating a new set of "smart services"
which will lead to improved efficiency and sustainability.

Every municipality should evaluate the different services that their city might need. The work
conducted by the FG‐SSC working groups, have allowed the identification of several ICT services that
contribute to the efficiency of city services, as summarized below:
 Smart Water Management Systems: These systems promote the sustainable management of
water (water supply and distribution, water and wastewater treatment and other municipal
related services like raw water services, drainage services or reclaimed water services) through
coordinated water management by the integration of ICT infrastructure (products, solutions and
systems) in order to maximize the socioeconomic welfare of a society without compromising the
environment .
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 Smart Energy Management Systems: These systems use sensors, advanced meters, digital
controls and analytic tools to automate, monitor and control the two way flow of energy,
optimizing grid operation and usage, to ensure reliability, self‐healing, interactivity,
compatibility, energy saving, safety, optimal use of energy from renewable sources and
minimum carbon footprint. ITU‐T Focus Group on Smart Grids has developed several documents
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in this field .
 Smart Transportation Management Systems: These systems need to move people (and goods)
in an efficient, timely and cost effective, safe and environmentally sustainable way. With that
aim in mind, they need to use technology (e.g., M2M communication, Wi‐Fi and RFID
technologies, Global Positioning Systems, sensors) and collect information (e.g., real‐time traffic
flow information, data analytics, prediction techniques) about mobility patterns. Some added
benefits of these systems include the capability to locate and identify vehicles, and monitor and
control infrastructures like roads. As a result, it is possible to reduce travel times, incident
duration and traffic accidents.
 Smart Waste Management Systems: These systems will empower the implementation of waste
tracking systems based on their ability to monitor the movement of different kinds of waste,
optimize collection routes, connect various smart waste management systems with local service
providers, leverage technology to collect and share data from waste sources, to waste
transportation, disposal and sorting. These upgrades will help to convert waste into a resource
and create closed loop economies, fostering more sustainable and productive uses of waste.

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9 ITU FG‐SSC (2014) Technical Report on "Smart water management in cities".

10 http://www.itu.int/en/ITU‐T/focusgroups/smart/Pages/Default.aspx

ITU‐T's Technical Reports and Specifications 151