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Andreas Ueckert is an expert in sustainable urban development and innovative technologies like the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and virtual reality and has been the Head of Smart City at Bechtle since 01 March 2024. His professional career includes working at the Fraunhofer IAO in Stuttgart in applied smart city research and his last position was as a consultant at Urban Software Institute GmbH, a provider of smart city solutions.
The topic of smart cities is nothing new. So why is it gaining traction again now?
Eight billion people live on our planet—and more than half of them in cities. In Germany, the figure is as high three quarters of the population. Cities consume more than 65 per cent of global energy and are responsible for more than 70 per cent of all carbon emissions, so it makes sense to focus on them first. And that is exactly what legislators have been doing for the past decade or so with increasing enthusiasm , on a global, European, and Germany-wide scale. Wide-reaching regulations and objectives have been developed to achieve a better quality of life and to ensure our livelihoods are protected.
Where are we on our journey to achieving these goals?
At this halfway point to the Agenda 2030, the picture is rather sobering. If we continue at the current pace, we will not complete any of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals within this decade so we need to significantly step up our efforts. With regard to our cities, we need to establish smart cities with sensors and AI analyses that regulate and optimise the areas creating the most carbon emissions. This needs to cover transportation, heat and energy supplies, and the maintenance and development of infrastructure.
The good news is that we’re now at a point where we have a lot of tried and true solutions that simply need adapting to local communities.
Andreas Ueckert, Head of Smart City at Bechtle
It sounds almost too good to be true. So what are the challenges facing these communities?
One of the biggest is that, due to demographic change and the associated lack of skilled workers, many communities are already operating at breaking point. Then there’s the fact that these cities and communities don’t really know where they stand vis a vis climate neutrality or how which properties are consuming the most energy.
In other words, they’re lacking the data.
That's right. And this leads to municipal climate managers having to spend a great deal of time trying to work out how on earth their city is faring. Depending on the size and how rural a place is, this can take half a year or more.
So, what is to be done?
To be able to make well-founded decisions on the basis of data, communities can, for example, install smart meters, which are intelligent monitoring systems providing data in real time. This allows deviations from the norm to be picked up. Things like heating being turned on in summer, lights left on at night. It happens more often than you might think. In terms of traffic solutions, infrared cameras can track traffic flow around the clock and differentiate between different types of vehicle data, meaning cities can make decisions based on the actual situation and start acting, saving time and resources.
After implementing a range of test projects, including one in Freiburg, Bechtle has been offering its customers a comprehensive Smart City portfolio since October 2023. What does this support entail?
As a rule, local authorities don’t have any sort of overview of the solutions available for their specific needs. This is where Bechtle comes in. We take on consultation and help communities understand what they can digitalise to achieve their sustainability goals, for example. And it’s all vendor neutral.
But what does that mean in concrete terms?
We work together with strong implementation partners to cover all aspects of smart cities. These range from tools that show you when to clean which sewer, rather than having to clean them all just in case, building monitoring that can help bridges be maintained for longer, to green zone monitoring to avoid over watering and smart parking to reduce the distance travelled to find a parking space. The IT infrastructure for these kinds of solutions is complex and requires experienced partners like Bechtle who handle everything from procuring and installing the hardware to connectivity and dashboard visualisation.
What will our cities look like if they can manage to transform?
I think in just a few years, virtually every local authority will have a range of automated solutions to collect and evaluate data, meaning that climate managers and city planners will only have to decide how to improve the situation rather than spending their time on tedious data acquisition. This will mean that in the future, public administration will have a hard-hitting impact with relatively few staff. They will be able to implement measures based on actual data findings, conduct evidence-based evaluations, and fine tune as necessary. The optimisation cycle will drastically accelerate and cities will be much closer to reaching their goals.
2030 is perhaps still cutting it a bit fine, but having climate neutral cities by 2035 is very realistic.
Andreas Ueckert
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