Today’s cities are awash with an influx of new technologies and reams of fresh data points that could soon help combat pollution, traffic congestion, overcrowding, and many other ills of modern urban landscapes. For all their potential, there?s a nagging feeling in some quarters that the arrival of these ballyhooed “smart cities” might benefit City Hall more than ordinary citizens. 
A new study unearths some of the projected benefits for urban dwellers and, perhaps more important, finds that improvements focused on transportation will be the major reason that they come to fruition.
Analysts at Juniper Research, in a newly released study, suggest transportation and mobility innovations could play a central role in helping city residents regain as many as 125 hours every year?the equivalent of more than three full work weeks?that are currently frittered away because of inefficiency and delays. Road congestion is one obvious contributor to those lost hours, and smarter traffic signals can accelerate traffic flow. But the researchers, who examined time savings across mobility, public safety, health care, and productivity, found that underlying improvements in transportation could produce gains not just in mobility, but in all of those categories as well. If anything, their study underscores the importance of transportation in making or breaking the way a city functions.
Delivering time savings hinges on the ability of cities to equip infrastructure, or cars...