The World’s Smartest Cities According to Unacast’s Report

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Proximity.Directory, formerly Proxbook, the world’s largest directory of proximity companies, has released its Q4 2016 Report which has aggregated information from more than 370 Proximity Solution Providers in over 50 different countries and reveals the latest trends, facts and figures from the global proximity industry as well as the growth and how proximity technologies can benefit smart cities. This is the 7th edition of the Proximity.Directory Report.

“The Q4 2016 Proximity.Directory Report concluded the deployment of global smart technology projects in urban markets is expected to grow significantly on annualized basis,” said Thomas Walle, co-founder & CEO of Unacast. “We are still in the early stages of smart city developments. In 2017, big project announcements will come to life.”

• Between 2014 and 2016, the global smart city technology market increased with $3.3 billion, going from $8.8 billion to $12.1 billion.
• 66% of the world population will live in urban areas by 2050. Today, 82.3% of the population in the U.S. live in urban areas.

Walle continued, “As more of the world’s cities become congested with continued urbanization, governments need to prepare for smart city initiatives. These initiatives can benefit by using proximity technologies to overcome mobility challenges the growing population presents to ensure public safety, optimize traffic flow, create better tourism experiences, and data monetization opportunities.”

Uber’s latest initiative (Uber Movement) gives city planners and researchers the possibility to look into ways to improve urban mobility by accessing their data connected to traffic flow.

“Uber has a lot of insight into how traffic works within a city, and it can be anonymized so that it isn’t tied to specific individuals in most cases,” stated Kjartan Slette, COO and co-founder of Unacast. “Uber is going to begin sharing this data, first to specific organizations who apply for early access, and then eventually to the general public.”

Here’s how cities are getting smart and putting technology to work for them

• Singapore deployed a massive amount of sensors and cameras around the city to analyze traffic congestion and crowd density, enabling government and officials to reroute buses at rush hour, avert traffic jams. They are able to predict how new buildings may affect wind patterns or communication signals.
• Barcelona installed wireless LED street lights to reduce energy usage. It has also deployed a network of ground sensors to regulate irrigation relative to forecasted rainfall estimates and temperature. The sensors adjust the city’s sprinkler system and fountains for efficiency, leading to an increase in water conservation by 25%—saving the city $555.000 per year.
• New York City has begun implementing a high-speed broadband service for the entire city which will be completed by 2025. Within this area, officials will be able to monitor data on air quality, traffic, and energy consumption
• London is using technology to help tackle congestion and make parking simpler. Government officials have opened up data to start-ups and projects to take advantage of it in building their products.
• San Francisco has implemented a smart parking system to monitor occupancy and can use this data for a dynamic parking system that adjust the cost of parking based on whether spots are occupied or vacant.

Additional Proximity Industry Findings

• Google Eddystone is continuing to catch up on Apple’s iBeacon
  • Now with 56% of the industry supporting the standard against Apple’s 88%
  • Since Q4 2015, Eddystone has increased by 17 percentage points while iBeacon has decreased by 4%
• Changes to the PSPi ranking: in hardware, Kontakt.io has taken the lead over Estimote while Swirl is the new leader over Proxama in the platform category
• The world is sensored up further, now with a total of 13,074,000 sensors where
  • 8,039,500 are beacons
  • 2,113,000 NFC sensors
  • 2.92 million Wi-fi points (11% increase from Q3)
  • Out of the total amount of deployed sensors, beacons account for 61%, Wi-fi sensors for 22% and NFC for 16%
  • In 2016 the percentage of beacons has decreased due to an increase in other types of sensor technology, such as Wi-fi (growing from >1% to 22% over the year).

Unacast will be hosting a webinar to discuss Proximity.Directory report findings on Wednesday, February 22 at 1pm ET. The webinar is free to attend and registration information is available on the event website.