Steps Towards Simulating Smart Cities and Smart Islands with a Shared Generic Framework - A Case Study of London and Reunion Island

Abstract

Simulation models can be used as decision support tools for smart city design and planning. They allow to evaluate the possible consequences of projects, before their implementation in the real world. Decision makers could benefit from replicable ones that can be relevant and easily transferable from one territory to another so solutions can be compared and re-use of model components can save time. In this paper we consider the case of citizen’s mobility flow simulation. However, most of such simulation models are designed to be suitable for a specific kind of territory. Some of them are reusable, but in a context that does not differ much from the original one for which they were designed, or require lots of changes to be relevant in another context. We classify those contexts into urban and insular and we show that despite their difference, they could be complementary. We demonstrate that testing a simulation model designed for an urban context, in a context with strong constraints can help in its consolidation. Thereby, after testing an Agent Based Simulation Model originally applied to a case study in London, in Reunion Island, we present a more generic simulation model that works for both systems.