AI already imposes fines if tolls or parking fees are not paid.

L'Hospitalet de LlobregatWhen people first started talking about the cities of the future, also known as smart cities, the idea was to install as many sensors as possible to monitor the devices that would be deployed on the streets. Over time, other ways to achieve the same result have been discovered, without needing to invest heavily in new systems, such as existing video surveillance cameras, which have now become another source of information thanks to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). The AI craze has made security cameras one of the main attractions at the new edition of the Smart City Expo World Congress, the smart cities trade fair organized by Fira de Barcelona. "It's undoubtedly the hot topic right now, but we wanted to not only talk about AI, but also see solutions," explains the fair's director, Ugo Valenti. From Tuesday to Thursday, more than 1,100 exhibitors and 25,000 visitors will gather at the 14th edition of this fair, which originated in the Catalan capital and has expanded worldwide, with the expectation of surpassing last year's figures. With several countries participating, Israel does not have its own pavilion this year.

As for AI, chips from the American tech giant Nvidia are sure to be featured. converted The first company in the world to reach a market capitalization of $5 trillion (€4.3 trillion at the current exchange rate) has its logo featured prominently on many of the congress's booths, always alongside other companies that have developed AI applications for various sectors. One example is the Danish company Milestone, a traditional video surveillance firm that has leveraged its extensive archive of images accumulated over years to create a kind of GPT chat for videos. From a short clip, its solution generates reports on what it has seen, such as a traffic accident or an illegally parked vehicle. For the American company ProHawk, AI also allows for the brightening of overly dark images, crucial for better detecting fights outside a building or the start of a fire. In this case, the technology generates the pixels that are present but not visible, eliminating the need to purchase a more advanced camera.

Generating real-time information from an image is a formula frequently highlighted by exhibitors at the Smart City Expo. For example, the Swedish camera manufacturer Axis applies it to monitoring riverbeds to prevent flooding, as well as to surveillance of roads and parking lots. In the first case, it allows for reading the license plates of cars traveling on a highway, in addition to the vehicle's make and color. With this information, primarily the license plate, studies can be conducted on the number of tourists visiting a location or whether any particular country of origin predominates among the travelers. It can also verify whether the corresponding toll has been paid, without requiring operators to be physically present on the road to check it. This function is also applied in parking lots to verify whether users have paid the correct amount and haven't tried to haggle for hours at the parking meter. If they haven't, the device provides all the evidence to the relevant authority to issue the fine. Controlling the number of cars circulating in the city also contributes to better traffic management, as well as verifying that those accessing roads have the right to do so, within the framework of pollution reduction policies such as Low Emission Zones (LEZs). This is not just an issue that affects private companies, but also operators like Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB). In recent months, buses on lines D20 and H12 have tested cameras with artificial intelligence that have allowed them to detect vehicles improperly entering the bus lane, an infraction that causes slowdowns, incidents, and worsens the quality of public service. It is also useful for managing a conference.

The same fairgrounds that delegates of the Smart City Expo are touring this week are another example of these new solutions. With 600 security cameras installed, AI allows all the information they generate to be processed in a matter of seconds, as Marc Serra, infrastructure director of Fira de Barcelona, explains. The system can send alerts upon detecting unusual behavior, such as an abandoned suitcase, and can also help identify suspicious individuals by analyzing the type of clothing they are wearing and filtering the images to find them more quickly than if they were reviewed one by one. In addition to the cameras, the complex is equipped with 2,000 sensors that measure temperature and humidity, a major concern at events with thousands of attendees in large pavilions. Since this year, an AI tool has been regulating the temperature of the Hospitalet de Llobregat venue, based on variables such as energy consumption and user comfort. This vast amount of data is analyzed by the technology with precision, resulting in cost reductions of up to 20%.