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Business Daily: Smart Cities

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16/12/2016 GMT

Smart Cities

BBC World Service - Business Daily, Smart Cities

Reactive lighting and traffic signals, and even self-healing potholes - the future city.

We examine the potential for reactive lighting and traffic signals, and even self-healing potholes in the city of the future. How close are we to the truly "smart city"?

We imagine the city of the future - not just a place where we live and work, but a living organism with reactive lighting and traffic signals, even water-mains that can fix themselves. We hear from two men involved in that transition: Brian McGuigan, the European Commercial Director for Smart Cities at the firm SilverSpring Networks, who is working on creating integrated city networks, especially focussed on smart lighting, and Phil Purnell, a Professor of Engineering at the University of Leeds, who considers how future drone and robotic technology will soon be able to monitor and fix problems, like potholes, broken light-bulbs and water-pipes, without people even needing to intervene. We also talk to Bernard Charles, President and CEO of Dassault Systemes, a French firm that's leading the way in the 3-D computer modelling that's needed to make these dreams a reality. But is a "self-healing city" a little too futuristic for you? With cities like Singapore aiming to become the world's first fully smart city, can we trust that Big Brother won't be watching us?

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