Railroads have been the symbol of beginning of industrialization. As the civilizations developed innovations through decades have evolved to make commuting easier. From steam engines to electric cars and airplanes we have tried to solve the issues of reducing time taken to travel. The important factors which have contributed to the technology and design of a vehicle are speed, convenience, fuel and cost. Today we have realized the importance of efficiency with respect to fuel usage and the impact of transportation on our climate. Cities have grown into bustling centers and commuting to work has become an issue with growing population. There are different proposals for building the new transportation infrastructure. The first thing we need to do is prioritize what do we really want to solve?

• Rush-hour delays
• Public transportation connectivity and frequency
• Driving distances and costs of commuting
• Transit Safety, retrofitting or redevelopment

Looking at “How do we commute today?”
Most of us drive or some carpool to work and many have long commutes; Very few use the public transit mostly who travel from longer distances to work leading to very few public commuting options in certain cities which still are not well connected.
In United States we have well defined roadway structure with interconnecting highways to connect the cities but there is a need to connect the internal cores of the cities in a more efficient way to reduce traffic congestions. We do have an ailing infrastructure which needs an upgrade to make it more efficient. Modernization of infrastructure plays an important role in simplifying and providing ease in usability. The ideal role for any technology development is to make everyone independent but at the same time making sure to be safe and eco friendly. Technology enhancements should be used for making transportation more efficient keeping in mind the need of people who have difficulty in commuting. Today various user friendly apps are available for schedule and navigation but much has to be explored for developing a sustainable transit.

Exploring new innovative models
Any transportation network depends on a regions topographic and other climatic considerations. An ideal model should include cities as clusters interconnected with a robust public transit which is frequent and well connected. In some cities an underground subway works better or an elevated path which is above the road level. We have concerns in California being an earthquake zone neither scenarios work. In our current systems we do have some flyovers and ground level transit zones. The challenge is how to make it better connected in cities where its not safe to either go above or below the road level.
Creating zones with rail systems connecting various intersections of the urban centers will reduce the traffic issues. There is a need for designing roadways for tomorrow to reduce city congestion which could be easily achieved in larger cities with missing connectivity. Finding safe solutions for commuting include expanding the city networks through sky-lifts avoiding the road traffic, possibility of accidents and saving commuting time. To make commuting safer automated electric cars or pods should be an option during late evening hours connecting the transit centers. We also need to take in account how could we maximize the efficiency in land travel with respect to the air and how safe would it be?

For local power generation integrating solar with our transit network is a better use of the dead assets for a distributed grid than encroaching remote lands usable for any future developments. It has been a concern for people to think maintenance of solar panels at heights to be difficult which may not be a sensible justification if we take into account the maintenance of skyscrapers in every city. We could also utilize the transit zones as green belts.

Designing a Resilient System
The transit network today is not planned considering any emergency requirements incase of any disaster. We have repeatedly seen the complete system shut down in emergency situations which leaves people stranded for long. Many cities like Boston and New York where people are used to public commuting have seen such situations which makes it inconvenient for them to completely rely on public transportation.
Planning the system with consideration of power and reliability is very important. Regulating new standards for systems and processes which includes a distributed grid for providing power to the complete public transit will play an important role in case of any power failures. We have miles of rail tracks and station roofs that are still not utilized for solar installations. I find it hard to believe when someone would debate on maintenance of solar along the tracks since we do keep maintaining even the rail tracks throughout the system frequently. Hopefully we could soon find out a way to integrate renewables at least for some parts to test for future mass adoption for larger projects.

If today someone asked you the way, we are rapidly growing to serve the needs of everyone, how long do you think humans would survive? What would be your answer? With time we keep on evolving and modernizing to bring more technology development to cater the needs of a growing population. If we look back to understand how we did start building cities through different civilizations to fulfill our needs of shelter as well as protection from weather and other exterior factors, we learn how remarkable and efficient the low tech building construction technologies have been previously. We have expanded our infrastructure to a limit and need to rethink the ways we have been building conventionally.
 
The cities do not just need to be more technology driven but built with materials which can stand time and are healthier for us. Most of our health issues are caused by the environments we live in which includes not just the people we surround ourselves with but also the living spaces from your work to home. It is an important aspect to build your habitats with consideration of materials and designs to serve the purpose of a healthy living. By using more natural and repurposed materials we try to reduce the waste created by the building industry.
 
At this time, we need to rethink the way we develop our cities to understand the urban sprawl and how it is going to impact our planet in the next 50 to 100 years. With all the research and development investments we still have not created building products for disaster protection. Every year in a hurricane or tornado areas a lot of lives are lost and infrastructure gets destroyed. The best way to demonstrate the new building enhancements should begin with the people who deserve it the most our low income communities. An Urban redevelopment should begin with creating environments which serve the needs of these communities. There is a need of developing more regional and locally sustainable environments that are prepared for any natural or human caused disasters.
 
Every region needs to have its own water and energy production capacity and methods to maintain and preserve these resources to avoid dependencies in future situations of shortages. We need to bring more solar onsite using the dead assets utilizing every space on earth than encroaching more lands to develop plants, although to some limit building solar plants may be better solution than expanding on other conventional power productions.
 
Through SunDraft we are trying to provide a platform to redevelop our communities with renewable energy integrated green buildings and transit infrastructure. We provide services to bring green products to market which demonstrate the standards for redevelopment of our cities. There are many ways to rethink modular housing which looks at the whole building or infrastructure designing process including the end of life usage. Assembling the roofing and solar in a way you would be able to repurpose materials than dumping them in landfills at the end of life. We look at redesigning the conventional roofing styles to better accommodate solar than using traditional shingle roofs which is just one example of the ways we want to redesign our cities.
To get involved connect us on info@sundraftenergy.com 

Building Components of a Smart City

How we define a smart city today is different for most of us. In this era of smart gadgets and ubiquitous connectivity, most of the times we describe it as information communication technology driven development which will be enhanced by cloud connected devices. Building intelligent interactive environments with embedded systems into physical objects, infrastructures, and the surroundings in which we live, travel, and work.

Artificial intelligence and Internet of Things is the cutting edge requirement in every product development today but if we see the big picture, a Smart City should be really described as a self sustaining city which is not only well connected with public transit, smart buildings with energy management devices but zero waste, uses renewable energy resources, stimulating economic growth, reducing poverty. In nut shell a city with a smaller carbon footprint. There are various indicators used to rank a smart city. These indicators as presented by various research groups that measure the city include built environment, mobility, government policies, economic development, education, well being and life style.

We need to remember the real thing is using our resources efficiently – reduce, reuse and recycle items used in our daily life. Purposefully using waste materials for building and manufacturing products. Some examples are use of dual purpose elements like a building integrated photovoltaic glazing which provides renewable energy onsite and reduces material usage, using recycled materials in manufacturing, including the use of water efficiently or passive designing of city infrastructure for less need for air conditioning in summer and winter seasons and a well connected and easily accessible public transit to reduce traffic congestion and reducing GHG emissions. Reducing waste would be a key to reducing landfills in our city to reduce contamination of our water resources and vegetation. Similarly, for growing local agriculture buying more locally grown produce encourages local farmers and builds local economy. As developers and designers we need to think about these best practices when we develop a smart city infrastructure. Well connected urban infrastructure and suburbs designed efficiently which use less energy.
 
A smart city means a hi-tech intelligent city which can sustain population growth and provide job security for all community members. Transitioning to an automated city is a dream to move ourselves to a space-age era but carefully thinking of an economically well integrated city development plan will make it successful in years to come. Urbanization and well organized suburbs for community development increases the well being of the inhabitants.
 
A smart city is prepared to restore itself after any disaster. How well a city is digitally able to restore its connectedness, mobility, energy and water services is the most important factor of ranking a city to be an intelligent city. There is a need to provide education to the public to diminish any aspects of creating a digital divide which is an economic and social inequality with regard to access to, use of, or impact of information and communication technologies. We are looking in future for an intelligent environment where every device is seamlessly connected providing user friendly/ accessible experience for all classes. The more enriched and connected the community the more growth we see. Active community neighborhoods with cultural bonding plays an important role in a city development. A city which makes everything accessible at your fingertips, is well connected, energy efficient and with flourishing community is why we need to build more smart city’s in future.