What will the city of the future look like? Is it the scene in a science fiction movie with various aircraft hovering in the sky, or is it a future building full of various shapes and a completely digital lifestyle?
By 2030, 60% of the world's population is expected to live in cities. By 2050, this number is expected to rise to 70%, while urban areas only account for 2% of the earth's land area. With the continuous development of human society, future cities will carry an increasing number of people. More and more countries have begun to explore "future cities" to achieve sustainable urban development and try to use smart technology to combine urban characteristics. To solve problems such as traffic congestion, resource waste, and environmental pollution.
Bristol, a two-hour drive from London, gives us a completely different vision of the city of the future. This is a high-tech town that is so simple that it makes you feel like you are in the "Lugang Town" in Europe. However, it is also a city of the future, where all the basic necessities of life are connected by technology and digital technology. Today let’s go into Bristol and see how he uses technologies such as the Internet of Things and big data to help cities become smarter.
Has a long history but is full of vitality
The city of Bristol is located on the Avon River. Its history can be traced back to more than 1,000 years ago and it is the second city on the British Isles. The first batch of nobles in British history were born here, so it is full of rich urban culture and profound historical heritage. Today, walking on the streets of Bristol, you can still feel the time-honored aristocratic atmosphere.
Once upon a time, Bristol was the most important commercial port in the UK, second only to London. In the 19th century, Bristol opened a railway to London and gradually transformed into an industrial center. Today, Bristol is one of the eight core cities in England and a high-tech center in southwestern England. It is known as the Silicon Valley of Europe, and many multinational high-tech companies have their European headquarters here. It can be seen that the overall industrial structure of Bristol has transformed from the original engineering industry to high-tech industry.
Britain's "smartest city"
Bristol's smart city project was implemented in 2011. The project includes pilot projects such as smart metering, smart grids, electric vehicles, and open data, as well as traffic control centers and freight integration centers. Waiting for some permanent projects.
This smart city project has two main goals. One is to reduce Bristol’s carbon emissions by 40% by 2020 based on Bristol’s 2005 carbon emissions. The other is to regard sustainable development as a community The first principle of development is to ensure sustainability as the only way to improve people's quality of life.
In April 2015, the City of Bristol launched a unique "Bristol Is Open" project, joining forces with the University of Bristol, Bristol City Council and industry partners to establish data sharing and analysis platform. The "Bristol Is Open" project has built a new "City Operations Center" (City Operations Centre). The city government invested 75 million pounds to build a fiber optic network and deploy sensors throughout the city.
These sensors have established three high-speed networks in Bristol city center covering all aspects of urban life, including energy supply, air quality or traffic conditions. Through this machine-to-machine communication, the urban system established can promote the development of a series of other applications, thus greatly enriching and facilitating people's living experience.
People can use these big data to learn about traffic information in various parts of the city, issue early disaster warnings, monitor fires and criminal behavior, and even allow the city to be presented in the form of 3D images...
The 2017 British Smart City Index Report starts from the perspective of strategy and It implements two major dimensions and uses ten indicators including the city's vision, goals, implementation, environmental impact and community participation to conduct in-depth analysis of the city, and divides the top 20 cities into "Leaders", "Leaders" and "Leaders". There are three main types: "Contenders" and "Challengers".Among them, Bristol and London were rated as the "leaders" of smart cities in the UK, and Bristol ranked first, becoming the "smartest city" in the UK.
Pioneer of Green Cities
In 2015, Bristol became the first city in the UK to be awarded the title of European Green Capital. The European Green Capital Award was established by the European Commission to reward cities that have maintained a high level of environmental performance over a long period of time. As an environmentally friendly city in the UK, Bristol has the lowest per capita waste volume, the highest resource recycling rate, the highest bicycle travel rate, and the lowest per capita energy consumption and carbon emissions.
Here, solar panels can be seen everywhere, and local air, traffic congestion, garbage recycling, energy use and other information can be learned from the city's open public information.
In the center of Bristol, the world's leading low-carbon technology planners and professional technical consultants gather. The representative organization is the South West Low Carbon Alliance. The South West Low Carbon Alliance aims to support the development of low carbon industries and organizations and institutions using low carbon technologies. The South West Low Carbon Alliance played a key role in the establishment of the Marine Energy Park in South West England, which stretches from Cornwall to Bristol and is used to develop offshore wind turbines and tidal power technology.
Europe's Silicon Valley
Bristol has the UK's most powerful research base, including the National Composites Center, Nanotechnology and Quantum Information Center and Europe's largest robotics laboratory, known as Europe's Silicon Valley.
On the M4 motorway belt with Bristol as the core, there are more than 100 high-end technology companies and well-known international companies, such as HP, Toshiba, Microsoft, Oracle, etc., with more than 5,000 scientists and engineers working here.
In addition, Bristol's telecommunications industry is particularly developed, and it leads the world in the research and development and application of multimedia technology. Bristol Robotics Laboratory is currently the largest robotics laboratory in Europe. The laboratory uses urine as fuel to generate electricity and successfully developed the world's first microbial fuel cell using this technology.
Of course, the development of high-tech industries cannot be separated from the entry of talents. Bristol has many high-quality schools, such as the University of Bristol, the University of the West of England, Bristol City College, Freeton College, Trinity Theological College, etc. Many entrepreneurial and innovative companies are born out of local universities, such as, The Department of Computer Science established at the University of Bristol in 1995 is part of the School of Engineering and has a strong teaching staff. Undergraduate related courses include Computer Science, Computer Science and Mathematics. Relevant courses at the postgraduate level include advanced computer science (divided into data mining, network security, creativity, etc.), computer research courses, etc. These are the school's advantageous majors and attract many local British students to apply for the exam every year.
In such a prosperous city with abundant employment resources, the cooperation of these educational institutions and high-tech enterprises has continuously provided high-end talents for urban construction, and also added more vitality and room for growth to Bristol.
The most livable city and the most popular tourist destination
Compared with other cities in the UK, Bristol has less industrial atmosphere and more petty bourgeoisie and tolerant character. It has been selected twice by the "Sunday Times" The most livable city in the UK, it was selected as one of the world's most popular travel destinations in 2019 by the British "Independent" and "The Guardian".
As "the happiest city in the UK", it has the style and comfort of a small city, as well as the convenience and technology of a big city.
Bristol not only has picturesque park buildings, but is also full of modern urban life. Ancient concert halls, museums, opera houses, modern pubs, cafes, cinemas... Such a rare combination fully inspires the city's inspiration and creativity.
Bristol is also the hometown of Banksy, the world-famous graffiti master, and one of the five "graffiti art cities" in the world. The colors of this city are not only printed on its own currency, but also reflected in Europe's largest graffiti art festival held here.
It is worth mentioning that Bristol holds a variety of activities every year to meet people's leisure and entertainment needs. In addition to the graffiti art world, there are also the famous Hot Air Balloon Festival, Harbor Boat Festival, Music Festival, Carnival, and Christmas. Market...
Most of the industries here are high-tech innovative industries, and they are also very culturally tolerant. Tradition and modernity, high technology and history are perfectly integrated here. Whether traveling or living, young or old, everyone can find a common language here.
From port to industrial center to high-tech center, Bristol is not content with its existing achievements. It is brave in innovation and good at using its own advantages. It continues to advance towards "smartness" and is one step ahead in many urban innovation fields. , and eventually became the “leader” of smart cities in the UK.
Bristol’s plan to transform itself into a smart city is not one that relies on technology, but one that is people-led. The innovation of the project lies in the establishment of a public-private-citizen cooperation model, gathering professional opinions from all parties, and implementing innovative measures through smart planning such as information and communication technology and digital connections. A successful smart city planning will not ignore the key factor of people. It will try to bring people closer to the entire infrastructure, so that everyone in society can participate and become a part of the smart city. Only then can it develop A true smart city, this is also something worth learning from in our country’s implementation of smart city construction.
The source of the article is from the Internet, compiled and edited by Ruitu Travel. Please indicate the source when reprinting.
The source of the picture is from the Internet. The copyright belongs to the original author
