Unfamiliar but desired: citizens’ attitudes toward smart city applications

Advances in technology are quickly paving the way for smart cities. The Government of Mauritius has set up the Smart City Scheme to provide an enabling framework and a package of attractive fiscal and non-fiscal incentives to investors for the development of smart cities across the island. However, prior to the design and implementation of such technologies, it is important to predict the behavioural intention to use such technology so that smart city technologies effectively empower citizens and improve the quality of life of citizens. In this research work, it is proposed to use the TAM to effectively assess the perception and readiness and the perceived usefulness of certain smart city technologies such as for transportation as well as identifying key smart city applications for Mauritius. The aim of this research project is to evaluate and assess the different factors and condition that can have an impact on the perceived ease of use (PEOU), perceived usefulness (PU), behavioural intention (BI) to use and actual use (AU) of smart city technologies. For smart cities to become a reality in Mauritius, smart city applications and services should be citizen-centred and relevant for ordinary citizens in their everyday life. This research work allows assessing the readiness of Mauritian citizens for Smart city applications, as well as identifying applications which can empower citizen.

The advent of technologies has created a need for a system that can provide better management and application of smart technologies in smart cities. The paper attempts to provide a review of legal and ethical considerations in adopting digital solutions for smart cities. There are challenges in terms of legal and ethical issues regarding the application of autonomous and near-autonomous vehicles, robotics technology, three-dimensional (3D) printing, mobile technology, and the Internet of Things that act as a primary or secondary source of new regulatory and legal challenges. The paper addresses the concerns through an extensive literature review and suggests a roadmap for better adoption of smart technologies in smart cities. The legal and ethical implications are observed in the examples of the digital payment, waste management, and contractual systems. This study focuses on the legal and ethical issues arising in the application of smart technologies in smart cities. The methodology focuses on the analysis of the literature review to derive some critical points to explain the impact of legal and ethical issues on smart city applications. The legal and ethical concerns are studied in terms of use of data, application of technology, proper functioning of technology, misuse of the data, commercialization of the data, and unwanted calls.

This paper aims to explore the most important disruptive technologies in the development of the smart city. Every smart city is a dynamic and complex system that attracts an increasing number of people in search of the benefits of urbanisation. According to the United Nations, 68% of the world population will be living in cities by 2050. This creates challenges related to limited resources and infrastructure (energy, water, transportation system, etc.). To solve these problems, new and emerging technologies are created. Internet of Things, big data, blockchain, artificial intelligence, data analytics, and machine and cognitive learning are just a few examples. They generate changes in key sectors such as health, energy, transportation, education, public safety, etc. Based on a comprehensive literature review, we identified the main disruptive technologies in smart cities. Applications that integrate these technologies help cities to be smarter and offer better living conditions and easier access to products and services for residents. Disruptive technologies are generally considered key drivers in smart city progress. This paper presents these disruptive technologies, their applications in smart cities, the most important challenges and critics.

Chapter 5 - Blockchain-based energy-efficient smart green city in IoT environments

With the development of technology, digital twin has played a non-negligible positive impact on the development of smart cities. From the mutually influential nature of digital twin and smart city, this paper analyzes the progress of digital twin technology in smart city applications through theory and case studies. The author examines three key cases: city brain, IoT cloud platform, and smart hub, to explore the application of digital twin technology in smart cities. In addition, the paper presents the potential problems of digital twin in smart cities, such as insufficient infrastructure, insufficient systematic data integration and few application scenarios. In future research, the author suggests that digital twin technology holds promise for enabling innovative applications in areas such as environmental protection, security, energy, healthcare, and tourism within smart cities.

As the world becomes increasingly urbanized, the development of smart cities and the deployment of IoT applications will play an essential role in addressing urban challenges and shaping sustainable and resilient urban environments. However, there are also challenges to overcome, including privacy and security concerns, and interoperability issues. Addressing these challenges requires collaboration between governments, industry stakeholders, and citizens to ensure the responsible and equitable implementation of IoT technologies in smart cities. The IoT offers a vast array of possibilities for smart city applications, enabling the integration of various devices, sensors, and networks to collect and analyze data in real time. These applications span across different sectors, including transportation, energy management, waste management, public safety, healthcare, and more. By leveraging IoT technologies, cities can optimize their infrastructure, enhance resource allocation, and improve the quality of life for their citizens. In this paper, eight smart city global models have been proposed to guide the development and implementation of IoT applications in smart cities. These models provide frameworks and standards for city planners and stakeholders to design and deploy IoT solutions effectively. We provide a detailed evaluation of these models based on nine smart city evaluation metrics. The challenges to implement smart cities have been mentioned, and recommendations have been stated to overcome these challenges.

The Internet of Things, as an important component of the new generation of information technology system, regards the Internet as the main carrier of information, enabling all ordinary physical objects that can be independently addressed to achieve interconnectivity. This is the key to promoting urban modernization and building smart cities. This paper analyzes and studies the application of Internet of Things technology in smart cities. Based on the understanding of relevant concepts, it aims to understand the relationship between IoT technologies and smart city construction, clarify the role of Internet of Things in smart city construction, and the challenges currently faced by IoT technologies in smart city application. Therefore, taking the smart community as the starting point, the application of the smart Internet of Things in the smart community is completed through eight steps: demand analysis, planning and design, sensor and device deployment, data collection, data storage, data analysis, control and scheduling, and user application development. The experiment results show that after establishing a smart community control platform based on smart IoT technologies, the failure rate of the comprehensive information sending end, receiving end, output system, and hardware system is low, the user experience satisfaction is high, and the platform performance is strong.

This chapter focuses on mobile networks: The term smart city can be defined as an environment that uses currently available technologies to improve living conditions by offering access to information about parameters that enhance lives of its inhabitants. These parameters can range from status of their education and employment possibilities, available utilities for citizens, transportation information, energy consumption information, health-related issues, water and air quality monitoring, waste management, and other relevant information that potentially benefit the community. Smart city is regarded as the future direction of urban development. Some applications of smart city are as follows: (1) Make public service to become more intelligent. (2) Make urban traffic to become more convenient. (3) Ensure Internet security. The key technologies of smart city include city-level smart operation framework, city-wide sensing infrastructure, M2M telecommunication, and city open data. These technologies will promote the development and evolution of smart city. Therefore, mining mobile data and understanding the underlying mobile Internet lifestyle are applications of smart city and also provide direction for the development of smart city.

5G technology is a new type of wireless communication technology with the characteristics of high speed, low delay, large connection, etc. It brings new opportunities and challenges to economic, social and industrial development. This article focuses on the application and value of 5G technology in smart cities, as well as the opportunities and challenges faced by 5G technology in smart cities. This article uses the method of literature reading and analysis to explore the role and functions of 5G technology in smart cities from the fields of smart homes, smart transportation, smart grids, smart security, etc. and analyzes the application scenarios and cases of 5G technology in smart cities, demonstrating the practical effects and social benefits of 5G technology in smart cities. This article evaluates the opportunities and challenges faced by 5G technology in smart cities, such as policy support, network construction, security, user needs, etc., and provides strategic suggestions for the promotion and application of 5G technology in smart cities. This article aims to improve the knowledge and understanding of 5G technology and smart cities, promote the coordinated development of 5G technology and smart cities, and provide technical support and innovation power for building a new digital, networked, and intelligent city.

Recently, a flying ad-hoc network (FANET) has been employed in modern warfare for monitoring and reconnaissance to produce a healthy living environment in smart cities through multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). FANETs allow multiple UAVs to communicate in 3D space to establish an ad-hoc network. FANET applications, among others, can deliver cost-effective services to help future smart cities achieve their goals. However, adopting FANET technology in smart cities is difficult due to its challenges from UAV mobility, energy, and security considerations. Therefore, this study analyzed the new trends and technologies of smart city research and proposes research directions through FANET. This chapter aims to look at FANET's possible applications in smart cities and the implications and issues that come with them. Furthermore, it also goes over the current state of recent enabling technologies for FANET in order.

According to the results of many surveys, urban areas consume the vast majority of resources. Therefore, it is vital to make cities greener and more sustainable by providing them with improved and automated processes. The possible improvements enabled by sensing technologies are colossal: They include tools from the smart design of buildings to intelligent control systems. Omnipresent sensing poses numerous challenges of a technological or social nature. This chapter presents an overview of the state of the art with regard to sensing in smart cities, including sensing applications in smart cities, sensing platforms, and technical challenges associated with these technologies. A range of applications, technical challenges, and technologies belonging to different disciplines are discussed in this chapter in order to provide a holistic view of the crucial role played by sensing technologies in smart cities. The information presented here will surely help budding researchers create more advanced smart cities structured around sensors and the Internet of Things.

The emergence of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies has led to the development of smart cities, potentially improving urban life through efficient and effective use of resources. The success of IoT-based applications in smart cities is contingent on several factors, including network power challenges. Deploying IoT-based applications in smart cities requires a reliable and efficient network infrastructure to ensure smooth and uninterrupted data communication. One of the significant challenges faced in this regard is low network power, which can significantly impact the performance of IoT devices and, consequently, the entire smart city system. This article addresses the issue of low network power in IoT-based applications in smart cities. It investigates the causes of this problem and the potential solutions that can be adopted to mitigate its impact. The article also highlights the importance of network power management in the context of IoT-based applications in smart cities. By implementing effective network power management techniques, it is possible to optimize the performance of IoT devices and extend their battery life, thus ensuring the overall efficiency and sustainability of the smart city system. The article concludes by emphasizing the need for continuous research and development to overcome the challenges of low network power and further enhance IoT technology's capabilities in smart cities.

A smart city is a developed urban area that excels in the area of economy, governance, people and life through strong human capital, social capital and ICT infrastructure. It is a new approach to managing the complexity of city life, increase efficiency, reduce expenses and improve the quality of life of the citizens. This paper is on potential smart cities applications as applied to the domains of smart transport, smart tourism and recreation, smart health, ambient-assisted living, crime prevention and community safety, governance, monitoring and infrastructure, disaster management, environment management, refuse collection and sewer management, smart homes and smart energy. These smart cities applications support the future vision of cities, which aim at exploiting ICTs, namely internet of things technologies (IoT), for value-added service delivery. Furthermore, the paper presents a technical solution for energy control and comfort in a home for proof of concept of a smart city infrastructure application. The demonstrator described here is on how smart applications can manage energy control and comfort in a room that has a varied number of people and electrical appliances, with each being a source of heat.

In this paper, we conducted a state-of-the-art survey on the current state of IoT platforms suitable for the development of smart city (SC) applications. Both commercial and open-source IoT platforms are presented and compared, addressing various significant aspects and characteristics of SC applications, such as connectivity, communication protocols, dashboards/analytics availability, security, etc. The characteristics of all the investigated platforms were aggregated so that useful outcomes regarding the technological trends of the IoT platforms could be derived. Furthermore, an attempt was made to identify any discrepancies between the needs of smart cities and the capabilities provided by the relevant platforms. Moreover, IoT platforms referring to the domains of industry, agriculture, and asset tracking were also included, alongside platforms that purely target smart cities, as parts of them are also applicable to smart city applications. The results of the comparison proved that there is a lack of open-source IoT platforms targeted at smart cities, which impedes the development and testing of connected smart city applications for researchers.

Smart and resilient cities are on the same path to long-term sustainability and need the creation of an ecosystem that can withstand an increasing number of hazards in the future. One of the primary goals of the smart city movement was to address many issues that have arisen as a result of growing urbanization, including the scarcity of energy, traffic congestion, and pollution. The way urban dwellers live, work, and travel due to more often natural disasters and political issues is changing, and this has an impact on the economy and business models, forming a new trend in urban studies. Smart cities play a critical role in the worldwide fight against Covid-19 in terms of tracking and tracing instances of coronavirus using smart technologies. The integration of smart buildings into a smart city also plays an important role in this scenario, providing advanced infrastructure and greater comfort for their residents as well as improved safety control, increased energy efficiency, accessibility to services, and overall satisfaction with a higher quality of life. The findings of this study are based on the review of papers selected from high-impact research journals, as well as an analysis of the most important industry tendencies and widely referenced literature on smart cities and resilient cities. As a result, this study examines the concepts of smart and resilient cities, as well as the relationship between smart city technologies, and resilient city indicators; the impact of technologies applicable in different smart city domains on city resilience is discussed. Finally, the conclusions on how proposed integration toward smart and resilient cities could be implemented for future cities’ development are presented.