Course:GEOG350/2024/Section 7: The evolving concept of the smart city
Introduction
Understanding Technology
Technology has been the basis of hundreds of societies over thousands of years. From the invention of the wheel to the creation of the screen you are viewing this through we have always been improving our technologies to serve our needs. While the wheel is far from what we may call a “smart” solution, its function as a way to improve our lives speaks to the purpose of technology. In modern times we have seen the term “smart” being added to more and more products such as phones, fridges, and even washing machines. These products serve the purpose of improving our connections to each other, reducing food waste, and optimizing water usage on an individual level throughout your life. Something else tying all these together under the modern concept of “smart” technologies is the implementation of the internet which has been a major step forward in managing and disseminating data across and between cities. Internet connections allow for these technologies to communicate with each other and reevaluate conditions in real time without a human needing to pass the message along.
What does it mean to be "smart"?
Smart cities are a product of modern technology and its growing usefulness to solve problems in our lives. While often depicted as something you would see in a sci-fi movie or TV show, the reality is they are much more down to earth than one would think. The Government of Canada defines a smart city by its use of data to improve public services and make decisions which can be collected in a multitude of “smart” ways (Government of Canada, "Smart Cities and National Security"). This could just be in the way of tracking how many people enter a building to surveillance of an entire city. Technologies including audio recording devices, cameras, and smart phones are examples of how data collection has been incorporated into everyday life already. In the government’s definition “smartness” is defined by the quantity and quality of these smart city solutions which can also depend on the size of the city. Smart cities also have no quantitative way to measure “smartness” and are subject to our own interpretations of the topic (Government of Canada, "Smart Cities and National Security"). The development of the technology used to collect this data also comes with its challenges as ethical concerns arise with consent and transparency being at the top.
Focus
You may be questioning if Vancouver can be considered “smart”. In this project we will discuss examples of smart transportation infrastructure from around Vancouver to discuss the importance of ethical implementation when considering smart city solutions and in turn determine how smart of a city Vancouver really is.
Smart Transportation in Vancouver: Enhancing Mobility through Technology
Overview of Smart Transportation
The process of smart transportation is just one application where advanced technologies and applied data analytics within urban transport systems are involved in improving efficiency, safety, and sustainability. It should account for various applied innovations, from public transport access cards to intelligent traffic management systems. In Vancouver, smart transportation is among the building blocks in the more excellent vision to grow the city into a more connected, resilient, and sustainable place.
Importance of Smart Transportation
Transportation remains the very lifeblood of any urban area, the consequences of which stretch even further than just quality of life, economic well-being, and environmental sustainability. Innovative transport technologies have been defined as technologies contributing to enhanced optimization of route planning, minimization of idle times, and the ability to make real-time changes in the stream of traffic (Intelligent Transportation System).
In a city like Vancouver, which is environmentally conscious and highly concerned with quality of life, the need for smart transportation could not be overemphasized. The physical setting of the city, situated between bodies of water and mountains, has made it very difficult to extend traditional transportation infrastructure. It enables the city to take maximum advantage of efficiency as well as capacity while minimizing the physical extension of the infrastructure. What is more, firm commitments by Vancouver toward reducing the amount of carbon emissions go in line with the fact that intelligent transportation has the potential to lower the general carbon footprint of a city (TransLink, “Regional Transportation Strategy 2050”).
Scale and Scope of Smart Transportation
Smart transportation technologies encompass a variety of applications. In Vancouver, notable examples include:
- Compass Card System: The Compass Card is an electronic fare card used across Vancouver's public transportation network, including buses, SkyTrain, SeaBus, and West Coast Express. This system streamlines fare collection, reduces boarding times, and provides valuable data on transit usage patterns, which can be used to optimize service schedules and routes.
- Intelligent Traffic Management: Vancouver has implemented advanced traffic management systems that use real-time data from sensors and cameras to manage traffic flow dynamically. These systems can adjust traffic signal timings based on current conditions, reducing congestion and improving travel times (Hryhoruk 455).
- Ride-Sharing and Mobility Services: Sharing options can also be added to urban transport by the ride service providers and other bike-sharing programs in flexible and sustainable ways to navigate cities. Services can be accessed and paid for easily through smartphone applications (Nair).
- Electric and Autonomous Vehicles: Vancouver is also piloting electric and self-driving vehicles as part of its transportation strategy (TransLink, “Regional Transportation Strategy 2050”). Charging infrastructure is growing, and pilot programs for autonomous shuttles are looking to cut emissions and increase safety.
Scale of the Issue
The sheer scale of intelligent transportation in Vancouver is monumental and is brought to bear on the daily commutes of hundreds of thousands of residents and visitors. The public transport system accommodates millions of trips annually. It is, therefore, not surprising that the City of Vancouver has been committed in so many ways to expanding and improving technologies in intelligent transportation and enhancing and sustaining urban mobility. That is not unique to Vancouver; it is already a global trend driven by urbanization, technological development, and the imperative of sustainable development. Cities from New York to Singapore are using such technologies to tackle common urban challenges. The three underlying principles of smart transportation—efficiency, sustainability, and data-driven decision-making—are the same everywhere. (Smart City).
Local Adaptation
However, the way intelligent transportation solutions will be implemented and their impact will hugely differ according to the local context of each city. The Vancouver context has unique physical and environmental attributes that this approach has been tailored toward. For instance, the city's keen emphasis on electric vehicles, expanding bike-sharing programs, and other green moves is vocal about its strong green ethos and culture towards leading an active life. Features such as a focus on real-time data and passenger information systems by local transit authorities endow the people of Vancouver, diverse and technology-friendly in their own right, with a huge plus (Chan).
Challenges and Ethical Considerations
Many advantages accompany smart transportation, but it also brings challenges in the domain of privacy, equity, and accessibility. The vast use of data in managing transportation systems raises questions regarding the safety and privacy of the data. This is one of the concerns that should be taken care of: making available to the residents these sophisticated modes of transport, irrespective of social or economic status. This also means that the policies and strategies in Vancouver must balance technological innovation and ethical consideration, with an application of inclusiveness in practice.
Privacy and Data Security
Massive amounts of data is collected and analyzed to optimize the operation of transportation systems. Consequently, privacy has to be well-safeguarded. The transparency and choices concerning the data of individuals and ways of collection, storage, and use of data need to be guaranteed (Information Privacy).
Equity and Accessibility
Innovative transport technologies should be made fully inclusive to the entire populace and not limited by those who are capable of or have access to smartphones and digital payment means (Moore 13). These efforts in Vancouver have been one to ensure the Compass Card system is easy and accessible, but it should continue so that potential barriers to accessibility are addressed. (Transit Accessibility).
Environmental and Social Impact
The drive towards electric vehicles and the active mode of transportation, which is biking, does not only save on emissions but, in essence, promotes healthier living. In Vancouver, there is much emphasis on the sustainable modes of traveling that resonate with the city's general environmental ambitions; it thus accords and earns itself a cleaner and relatively healthy atmosphere. (Moore 10, Active Transport).
Evaluation
Smart transportation is one of the cornerstones of Vancouver's journey towards becoming a smarter city. The use of innovative, advanced new technologies, along with data analytics, ensures an innovative, inclusive, and sustainable system of mobility. Attention to smart transportation goes far beyond better mobility: it is also about a good life for its residents and, thereby, acting as a role model for other cities worldwide. Vancouver will continue its innovation in solving transportation challenges, which will mean a lot for the future of city mobility.
Smart City Transportation: Enhancing Efficiency and Equity
A smart city is an urban area that uses technology to collect and use data to improve the quality of life for citizens, increase efficiency, and reduce costs (Xia 1). Data collection, its analysis, and the resulting reform are the principal processes through which many aspects of urban transportation can put smart city technologies to good use. Technology and data collection hold immense potential for improving efficiency, access and sustainability in the transportation sector. Through data collection and analysis, researchers and city planners can recognize, study, and prevent resource inefficiencies. The private sector is essential in providing resources and technologies, and the public sector must collaborate with private companies to combine innovation and technical expertise into a single coherent transportation sector that benefits the public best. The success of a smart city's transportation system hinges on its ability to amalgamate technologies, apps, available resources, public demand and necessity into a single articulate organism.
Within the Context of Vancouver
Public Transit Systems
Urban transportation can benefit from smart city technologies because they allow the city to recognize resource inefficiencies and give it the possibility to adapt. An example of this data collection in Vancouver is TransLink, which uses various systems to measure passenger load and determine peak hours and areas (TransLink, "Transit Service Guidelines", 21). Analyzing and mining transportation data allows social scientists, city planners and policymakers to get a better understanding of the demand of commuters (Hryhoruk 455). Beyond understanding when and where transportation systems are at capacity, this technology allows for an understanding of what urban areas are well included in the transportation network and which areas continue to find themselves disadvantaged when it comes to access to transportation.
Cities such as Vancouver face challenges of social and spatial inequality when it comes to economic access. High-income jobs are often located densely within the city. Low-income groups, forced to live in urban outskirts, face large challenges in accessing these high-income sections of the urban economy. Data collection and analysis of transportation patterns on urban outskirts provide the information needed to help urban planners tackle these challenges (Hryhoruk 456). The city of Vancouver acknowledges the potential of these technologies in reducing inequality in its plan for 2050. While they outline their determination and view of technology as an opportunity to deliver a transportation system that advances social equity, they also acknowledge that good transportation connections often increase housing prices by making the locations more desirable (TransLink, "Regional Transportation Strategy 2050", 21). Nonetheless, they are determined to use new technologies to promote social equity in access to transportation and improve the efficiency of the network by 2050 (TransLink, "Regional Transportation Strategy 2050", 22). Vancouver’s example and similar approaches by many cities around the globe demonstrate that smart city technologies of data collection can not only improve efficiency in the transportation sector but also have the potential to combat inequalities by increasing access to economic resources for marginalized communities.
However, transportation in Vancouver is no longer limited to the binary option of car or public transport. The last decade has seen the rise of digitally based transportation services with wide-ranging effects on how people move through urban spaces. In Vancouver, platforms such as MobiBike, Evo and Uber are diversifying the transportation system by making scooters and bikes electronically available to the public and offering relatively cheap alternatives to owning a car. The rise of these private transportation services and their collaboration with Vancouver can be a positive example of smart city technology benefiting efficiency and equity within the city. These services and the public sector's engagement with them represent a smart city’s attempt at merging various transportation system components into a single coherent transportation organism and engagement between the public and private sector that is endemic to a smart city.
MobiBike Share recorded over 1 million rides in 2023 for the first time, with over 20,000 regular bikes, 600 e-bikes and 248 stations across Vancouver (Chan). The continuing ascension of MobiBike as a viable transportation alternative is further encouraged by the city's plans up until 2050. Both the TransLink ‘Transport 2050 Regional Transportation Strategy’ as well as the city's plan for 2050 have made the introduction of a safe and convenient biking network a top priority that goes hand in hand with MobiBikes’ strategies. There are specific plans that involve expanding the biking network in making the bicycle an active transportation variant for long distances and shorter trips (TransLink, "Regional Transportation Strategy 2050", 29) (City of Vancouver 112).
Successful collaborations between the private and public sectors like this demonstrate the potential for efficient resource allocation of smart city technologies. Not only does it reduce Vancouver's ecological footprint, but it also limits the consequences of environmental degradation. Promoting a shift to biking helps reduce poor air quality and its associated health risks, which disproportionately affect lower-income individuals who are more exposed to busy roads. Furthermore, when the city promotes various transportation alternatives, it enables individuals from marginalized backgrounds and those with difficulties accessing a single form of transportation to benefit from a diverse range of options. Globally, many cities take the notion of amalgamating various smart city transportation innovations into a single organism and an Internet of Things even a step further. In Singapore, an app called MyTransport.SG gives updates on all sorts of traffic information to help people plan trips better. Some Chinese cities have even gone so far as to incorporate services from private and public stakeholders in a single app that provides bike share, parking, public transport updates and even medical appointments (Xia 3).
Concerns and Challenges
While public transit and the various forms of new transportation services have helped increase accessibility, enhance the transportation experience, reduce environmental impact, and empower the development of smart cities, it is noteworthy that these services have raised concerns among residents. These concerns over data security, personal privacy, road safety, and regulations can be challenging for the continued implementation and sustainable development of smart transportation and other smart city technologies.
Privacy Concerns
The Compass Card is a contactless fare collection system applied by TransLink. It allows users to conveniently pay for transit usage in Metro Vancouver through stored values, tickets, or passes loaded on the card. Although a card account is not required to purchase or use the card, users who wish to use the automatic reloading service or have their transit passes linked to their card will have to register for an account with their personal information; even for those without an account, detailed information for each trip paid by the Compass Card will be recorded, according to Compass Card’s Privacy Notice (TransLink, "Statutory Annual Report"). In 2023, TransLink reported a total ridership number of 392 million (TransLink, "Statutory Annual Report", 5–6), meaning the transit authority possesses millions of trip details associated with personal information in the past year alone. Privacy advocates are concerned that such sensitive data can cause harm to users, if handled improperly, and that the usage of this data is subject to changes to the privacy policy made by TransLink (Eagland). Researchers have also pointed out that risks of tracking, identity theft, data leakage and misusage are associated with the usage of smart transit cards and the storage of transit card data (Pelletier et al., 559).
Similarly, the various services providing diversifying transportation methods for Vancouver residents are also raising privacy concerns. Like with the Compass Cards, trip details are also recorded by these services, but as Compass Cards are operated by TransLink and responsible to the government, these services are usually provided by commercially-run companies, and in some cases, these companies can be based in a foreign jurisdiction, and user registration is required to use any of these services, with more sensitive information recorded, including identity documents and credit card information. This means that although the services are widely used as alternatives to public transit, they are not as regulated, and users are prone to higher risks of data misusage (Braw & Palazzolo, 5–7).
Other Issues
While the engagement with the private sector to enhance the smart transportation system for its residents is being actively adopted in Vancouver, the local authority's slow responses to necessary regulation and legislation work, as well as the lack of public consultation in the implementation process raises other concerns. An example could be Evo Car Share, Vancouver’s local carsharing service, while gaining its popularity for being able to park anywhere in its Metro Vancouver Homezone (Evo Car Share), local residents worry that its cars are taking up the city’s limited parking availability (Junos). Meanwhile, Mobi, one of Vancouver’s public bikeshare operators, faces similar criticisms for installing docking stations in congested areas and for lacking public consultation (Baker). In the case of rideshare, Vancouver was criticized for its slow response to the global expansion of ridesharing networks. As reported by CBC News (Nair), it took the city almost 8 years to finish the legislation allowing ridesharing services to operate, as unregulated, illegal rideshare services prevailed among minority residents due to the lack of corresponding regulation (Lasquan).
Lessons learned
Engagement With Third-Parties
Vancouver is an example of a large and diverse system of transportation. We see a range of transportation options such as bus, SkyTrain, ride and bikesharing programs supporting locals and tourists alike. Incorporating technologies such as the Compass Card to support these systems are key to the growth of the city and a great way to streamline the system for everyone. Improving the transit system also helps Vancouver keep up with other parts of the world with their advanced transit networks. MobiBikes and ridesharing companies such as Uber serve as great options to provide access to what may be a normally expensive investment for an individual to take on. They also help limit emissions by bringing people off the road or introducing carpooling options.
Developing smart city technologies, and thus the smart city, requires various levels of government to work with different third-party companies to reach this goal. Introducing these new technologies is a tricky process to navigate as it requires introduction of legislation as we saw was the case with Uber. This brings up the importance of maintaining legislation that reflects the modern world as it is always changing. It is also important for us to recognize these companies as having their own priorities with their services and ways to go about collecting data. TransLink, Uber, and other services are all collecting our data for the purpose of improving what they provide but can also create concerns about data privacy. TransLink is a case of a government owned entity engaging in data collection for purposes such as expanding services to new areas, improving coverage of existing routes, and changing to the demands of the city. TransLink’s wide outreach collects so much data on its users it also brings into question the privacy of user data. Uber on the other hand is a third-party service which may cause more concerns around data collection as it ridesharing apps are still relatively new to consumers. This is why ensuring legislation around data privacy and uses of technology is modernized can allow users to safely engage with the smart city.
Conclusion
Referring back to the Government of Canada’s ("Smart Cities and National Security") definition of smart cities we can spot some similarities with the transportation technologies present in Vancouver. We see a lot of data being collected by services such as TransLink and Mobi to inform their decisions. This data is key to expanding transportation networks around the city and making the city “smart”. Transportation is also one of the most advanced parts of Vancouver in relation to other major Canadian cities and other parts such as governance could be modernized to fit within our growing digital world. While there is no concrete way to quantify the smart city, it is difficult to consider Vancouver as a whole a smart city. Vancouver can instead be seen as an emerging smart city as it works to develop and integrate technology and data collection into more parts of its design.
References
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Braw, Elisabeth, Franco Palazzolo. How Ride-Share Apps Collect and Store Data: A National Security Risk? Royal United Services Institute, 1 January 2021. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep58070.
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