"Smart cities"

is such a wide term! On the one hand just installing LED lighting and saving money has appeared under this tag. Laudable but probably sensible rather than smart. On the other hand driverless cars and urban mobility planning that could remove those CO2 generating traffic queues in Atlanta, Palo Alto and London. And all sorts of projects in between including parking services managed by Local Authorities and the potential to increase productivity and service adopting telehealth

Take parking services.....

Just automating the process of "suspended bays" makes a mega difference i.e. Water Company need to upgrade piping and applies for parking bays to be closed to public use. Often there are extra days taken before or after the work is completed denying residents and visitors of much needed parking space. Combining analytics with the back-office systems to visually identify the necessary bays ( hard to get the right ones when relying on text and lists) and booking the suspensions using write-back to kick-off the operations, signage and invoicing the water company. Then a reminder automatically scheduled ( they often need an extra day or two) rather than left to last minute.

As soon as work is finished get bay back in use ASAP. Combining (embedding) back office and analytics in one closed-loop solution for better service and better efficiency. Delivering more for less as Islington Council has effectively done. 

Good to see historic City of York looking at these incremental and continual improvements.  The smart city "big bang" combining big data, IoT, wearable, parking bay sensors, driverless cars  will come. But big advances will come sooner with today's technology and  planning like York's