I got up early today. The Christmas, I have an endless list of shopping and errands to do. I start the day at a parcel delivery company, picking up a gift I bought from a famous online sales portal. As always happens, they never find me at home, and I have to end up going to the office that is closest to my house. And as every year at this time I am surprised by the volume of packages piled up all over the office, most of them coming from the website where I made my purchase.
The volume is such that in the office they have chosen to make two queues, one for all the packages coming from that company and another for the rest. An hour's queue goes a long way, so I begin to dream of that day when the ease of online shopping will be total, and delivery time will depend only on transport time, not on delivery and collection time. Temporary consignment projects are already being launched, some of them 24×7, but always linked to a specific logistics operator, ignoring the fact that the citizen wants a comprehensive service. For the time being, I have to resign myself to queuing and not having any mutually optimal collection arrangement system.
The day goes on, and I have to go to a shopping mall to buy some gifts. I choose to go by car. Fortunately, we have apps that help us to avoid crowded streets and areas at this time of the year due to the very high influx of citizens. I begin to appreciate these technological contributions when I find the entrances to the parking lot of the shopping center collapsed. The application I use informs me of the traffic conditions very reliably, but it is not able to integrate information about the parking status of the shopping mall, even though I knew before I left what my destination was. I end up ruling out parking at the mall, and have to start looking for alternative parking, combining surface parking and private parking search applications. In the end, I find surface parking.
It's time to try to buy. One of the stores was out of stock of the product I was looking for, although its app said it did. I managed to reserve the product at another store in the city center. I rule out going by car, so I leave my car parked there and thanks to another app I get a route by public transport.Wow! The app has not taken into account the special Christmas restrictions, I get off and decide to keep walking, admiring the beautiful Christmas lighting and shop decorations. I get off and decide to keep walking, admiring the beauty of the Christmas lighting and store decorations. I download an app that informs me of the energy consumption I can also see the lights that surround me as I walk, and another one that gives me information about the experience of some users regarding products that are marketed in the stores that I see, until I finally reach my destination.
I buy the gift and start my way back. As I retrace my steps I see a store of the same chain where I just bought the gift. Out of curiosity I enter and find the product I was looking for in stock. Too bad, if your app had realized would have saved me half an hour. In the absence of this information, I could have decided on another gift from a competitor, or even not bought anything at all.
I have already arrived at the car. Luckily I have been able to renew my parking in the parking control system app. I start my way back home, as lunch time is approaching. All in all, a whole morning for 4 treats.
What if there was a real Smart Christmas?
What would have happened if I had had a comprehensive information system at my disposal?
I would not have started the day at the parcel delivery company, as it would have been delivered to me days earlier in a agreed upon, I would have already picked it up. I would have ruled out going to the mall by car after learning about the real difficulty of parking and would have opted for public transportation with real-time information. Or maybe I would have driven if I could have used a comprehensive parking management system. An app could have given me the information I needed in real time and assigned me a parking space suitable for my vehicle by combining information from the mall, surface parking spaces and private parking lots.
I wouldn't have had to go downtown, because I would have known at all times the availability of the products I was looking for, as well as their location, and I would have been able to do it in half the time! In addition, a comprehensive information system would have sent me the information I needed. propuestas personalizadasI could have continued with my shopping, run some errands for Christmas dinner, go to see the lights that have been turned on in my neighborhood...
Are we so far away from this type of system? Actually, no. We already have technologies that allow us to massively process data from widely dispersed sources, guaranteeing the confidentiality of each of them and generating new business opportunities.
At Zemsania we develop integrators, provide technological solutions and improve connectivity to offer everything our clients need. Maybe in a few years, companies and administrations will invest in the real digital transformation and guarantee true Smart Cities services.