Standards can help build sustainable smart cities for growing populations

The world is projected to have 41 megacities with populations of 10 million or more by 2030. According to the United Nations, urban areas are also projected to house 60 per cent of people globally, and one in every three people will live in cities.

More statistics paint a picture of increased urbanisation. In 2016, an estimated 54.5 per cent of the world’s population lived in urban settlements.

The United Nation Development Programme says more than half of the world’s population now live in urban areas. By 2050, that figure will have risen to 6.5 billion people — two-thirds of all humanity.

Closer home, in 1990, the Nairobi population was estimated at 1.4 million. This has more than quadrupled approximately to over 4 million, and by 2030 there will be 14.3 million people residing in the city.

The world’s population grows by nearly 250,000 people every day. Kenya cannot survive the pressure of population, meagre resources and quality of amenities unless we plan our cities sustainably.

With such exponential population growth, there is a need to review how we plan cities. The goal is to ensure that we have sustainable smart cities that have adequate amenities such as water, electricity, ability to travel efficiently from one point to another, and other pressing challenges such as waste management.

Sustainable development cannot be achieved without significantly transforming the way we build and manage our urban spaces.

On October 14 every year, members of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) celebrate World Standards Day, as a way of paying tribute to the collaborative efforts of the thousands of experts worldwide who develop the voluntary technical agreements that are published as international standards.

This year’s theme, “Standards make Cities Smarter”, is opportune given that many cities, Nairobi included, are facing similar challenges of building a smart city, which is a complex exercise.

Every city faces its own challenges and requires its own mix of solutions. However, there is one common denominator that greatly simplifies this task: International standards support the development of tailor-made solutions that can be adapted to particular circumstances of a given city.

The standards contain expert knowledge and best practices, and are essential enablers in ensuring quality and performance of products and services. In addition, they drive compatibility between technologies and help users to compare and choose the best solution available.  

International standards such as ISO make things work safely and smoothly in cities at every level. They provide the foundation for electricity access and all the devices and systems that use power and contain electronics.

They support the information and communication technologies that enable data collection, exchange and analysis, and information security. They also provide important guidance for all aspects of city life, including energy-efficient buildings, intelligent transportation, improved waste management, building sustainable communities, and more.

According to ISO, cities need to make better use of resources and become more efficient: Policies, regulation, citizen involvement and standards are key components needed to build a viable Smart City. While all these are important, in a path towards smarter cities, standardisation will play a key role in ensuring consistent outcomes of clean and safer cities.

In today’s cities, much of the infrastructure is installed by a diverse set of suppliers and maintained by different agencies who sometimes work in isolation. To connect them both physically and virtually, standardised interfaces need to be put in place. This is where standards organisations and others have an important role to play.

For city planners, utilities, service and technology providers, standards are essential enablers, facilitating an expected performance and quality level, consistent reproducible outcomes as well as compatibility between technologies.

Road construction

A perfect example is how a road would be constructed and finished, and, within two months, suppliers would be found excavating the road to install other infrastructure such as underground cables, water pipes and sewer systems. In the process, they mess up the whole environment and inconvenience users.

For instance, the city of Nairobi was planned for a small population, but with rural-urban migration, the city is now a home to over four million people. The city of Nairobi is using a master plan developed in 1973, which legally expired in 2003.

A master plan is usually valid for 20 to 30 years, which means that structures constructed in Nairobi since 2003 may technically be classified as illegal.

The main goals for the 21st century are to deal with solid waste management, water and sanitation supply, provision of energy and air pollution, housing, land use planning and the rise of urban agriculture.

Through development of an integrated urban infrastructure system in Nairobi and its suburbs, the migration back to rural areas should be guaranteed.

Standards are relevant in the physical world, where they allow for the interconnection of hardware and technologies, and are also important in the virtual space, where they facilitate data collection/sharing as well as city operation. For instance, ISO 37120:2014 defines and establishes methodologies for a set of indicators to steer and measure the performance of city services and quality of life.

The standard follows set principles, and can be used in conjunction with ISO 37101 on sustainable development in communities and management systems.

The ISO 37120:2014 is applicable to any city, municipality or county government that undertakes to measure its performance in a comparable and verifiable manner, irrespective of size and location.

By using standards, challenges around city planning and management can be alleviated or controlled. The future looks bright for cities and communities that use standards during planning and service provision.

ISO through ISO TC 268, Sustainable Cities and Communities, has developed standards that contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals through its standardisation work.

The proposed series of international standards also encourages the development and implementation of holistic and integrated approaches to development and sustainability.

The standards developed aim at addressing the following areas — management systems, city indicators, city anatomy and sustainability, strategies for smart cities and communities, and smart community infrastructure.

China is already undertaking pilot smart cities projects on more than 100 cities using the standards developed by ISO TC 268.

With standards, we can make our cities smarter, step by step. International standards will support smooth and integrated smart city development. The world runs on standards.

Charles Ongwae is the managing director, Kenya Bureau of Standards