IoT devices have gone on to become an increasingly popular option for digital transformation. While around 37 million of them happened to exist in the UK smart cities in 2023, experts go on to believe that there is going to be 88.66 million by 2028, which means that they will more than double within half a decade.
As time goes by, it is a fact that more smart city transportation infrastructure will rely on connected devices. Since they can go on to monitor their IoT assets’ locations and that too in real time with built-in cloud-based geolocation technology, monitoring hundreds of buses, trams, trains, and coaches is relatively seamless.
Sensors embedded within the hundreds of traffic lights, GPS devices, bridges, highway cameras, and vehicles go on to constantly collect data. Locally processing all of that data, apparently, would be next to impossible, but that is where cloud computing comes into play.
Cloud computing helps IoT devices process as well as store information on remote cloud servers rather than storing it locally. Analytics or machine learning algorithms can go on to rapidly analyze all the incoming data, thereby uncovering the hidden trends as well as providing insights pertaining to transportation demand, traffic flow, as well as potential delays.
It is well to be noted that cloud-based fleet management makes up a prominent chunk of cloud computing as well as IoT applications in transportation. Since fleet data gets stored in a central system, smart cities can go on to remotely monitor vehicle maintenance, fuel efficiency, along with the driver behavior.
The advantages of making use of cloud computing and IoT
There are many advantages when it comes to leveraging cloud computing as far as smart city IoT devices are concerned. For one, storing as well as processing data in a central system happens to be far more secure. City officials can go on to prioritize securing the cloud against data breaches rather than stressing each and every single endpoint.
Yet another substantial benefit happens to be its affordability. As per one study, 63% of organizations that migrate to the cloud have lower operational costs. The fact is that any money smart cities save can later be reinvested into enhancing the transportation systems as well as the infrastructure pertaining to them.
Accessibility happens to be one of the more significant advantages of leveraging cloud computing for smart city IoT devices. When city officials go on to store all transportation data within a central storage system, they go ahead and eradicate data silos, which means the collaboration between local government agencies gets simplified.
How cloud computing and IoT elevate the levels of transportation
One of the most significant ways cloud computing along with IoT enhance transportation is by way of real-time insights. Because of this, city officials as well as public transportation professionals can go ahead and make data-driven decisions in case any delay, car accident, or even a scenario of a traffic jam takes place. When it comes to the end-user side, a cloud system that goes on to collect IoT information can go on to offer bus schedule updates, reports on vehicle accidents, and delay notices, irrerespective of the time of day or even the location.
Taking into account, the UK trains arrived late 20.7% of the time last year, the shift is indeed necessary. Fortunately, sensors can go on to collect data when it comes to traffic congestion, the condition of the weather, and even roadway collisions, so as to offer real-time alternate pathways.
Noticeably, some public transportation enhancements go on to revolve around infrastructure and not bus schedules along with train arrival times. Embedded sensors within bridges as well as roadways can go on to collect wear-and-tear data so that city officials along with engineers know in an exact way when maintenance happens to be due.
Besides this, those same embedded sensors can go ahead and gather usage information, tracking how many vehicles go ahead and use specific roads and bridges. In this way, the city would get to know exactly where to direct transportation funds so as to make sure that they make the most prominent impact.
Public transportation future in smart cities
Cloud computing as well as IoT technology go hand in glove. In all likelihood, there will not be a future where UK smart cities make use of one without the other. They go on to make sure that the passengers’ lives become easier, roads happen to be safer, and traffic is less congested, so that they go on to remain staples.
