Article published on Security Journal Americas: 4/30/2024

Robert Messer, President and CEO of IPTECHVIEW, examines the Internet of Things: the heart of small city transformation

In the rapidly evolving landscape of urban development, integrating Internet of Things (IoT) solutions has become essential not only to large metropolitan areas but even more so to smaller communities.

Among the myriad of technologies, cameras, environmental sensors, and electronic utility metering offer even small cities a rapid path to enhance their safety, sustainability, and efficiency.

Smart Surveillance

IoT cameras do more than record video; they are equipped with advanced analytics that enable real-time decision-making and incident response. For example, IoT cameras can analyze unusual traffic and crowd sizes, detect accidents and even identify certain suspicious activities using AI. As camera-to-cloud video surveillance-as-a-service (VsaaS) solutions become more popular and cost-effective, even small cities can leverage this technology.

Moreover, these cameras contribute to traffic management. They monitor traffic flow and can adjust signal timings dynamically. In accident scenarios, IoT cameras provide first responders with real-time data, enabling quicker deployment to the scene, which can be crucial in life-threatening situations.

Smaller communities may also add cameras to parks and recreation areas to conduct virtual patrols that will save time and resources. This will help to ensure the safety of parks and more remote areas while still providing officials and relevant persons with early warnings of potential illegal activities.

Environmental Monitoring

Environmental sensors are another critical component of innovative city ecosystems. These sensors collect data on various parameters such as air quality, temperature, humidity and pollutant levels.

Today, IoT cameras are frequently used to meter water levels at creeks and storm drain systems in flood areas to provide important early warning systems, essential for proactive flood area management.

Strategically placed pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras with optical and thermal sensors and AI fire detection managed by the city or the fire departments can also provide an important early detection system that can prevent small hazards from becoming big problems. Systems like the AlcheraX FireScout help communities react while the fires are small and easy to contain.

During environmental hazards such as high pollution levels or unexpected weather changes, these sensors enable city officials to swiftly implement emergency protocols.

Integrated IoT Systems

The true power of IoT solutions in smart cities lies in their integration. When cameras and environmental sensors work together, they provide a comprehensive view of the urban landscape. IoT cameras provide visual monitoring for fire and during storms, unusual traffic, crowds and special events. At the same time, environmental sensors can track air quality and the presence of hazardous gases, aiding in the coordinated response of emergency teams.

Access to all this technology is within most smaller communities' budgets if they carefully select their partners. Smaller communities will often get better results when working with smaller and more vendor-independent partners to help them tie together solutions with diverse, lower-cost systems than with more prominent players relying on proprietary single-brand solutions. They may be able to access local integrators using innovative cloud platforms they are certified for to provide local installations and services.

This may provide them with a higher, more dedicated level of service and faster response to the community.

In a world where AI is advancing at an unprecedented pace, it is particularly valuable to have the right data-collecting infrastructure and access to the data in place to benefit from its intelligence. Cities with access to data will be better off than cities that have to rely on anecdotal evidence for everything, affecting their own governance and decision-making processes.

As smaller cities continue to grow and face complex challenges from growing populations and/ or weather change-related phenomena, the adoption of IoT solutions like cameras and environmental sensors is no longer optional but a necessity. The data-driven insights offered by IoT devices enable city planners and officials to make informed decisions, ensuring sustainable urban development and improved quality of life.

The new and ever-evolving capability of these solutions can significantly enhance the responsiveness of law enforcement and emergency services. Cloud-based solutions typically constantly expand and include free upgrades to the latest advances on the platform, which makes them very valuable for smaller communities that do not need to renew their local solutions constantly but rather buy into the future. Such specialized players aggregate the experience from many small communities and, in a way, share the progress across the board with all these communities through their more connected cloud solutions. This is particularly valuable with regard to expanding AI analytics and richer data collecting features provided by some of the smaller, more specialized cloud platforms that provide full access to the city of their data along with actionable intelligence.