Smart Cities In India Research Articles

Audit Ethics as A Moderating Variable in Auditor Quality Assessment

Urban regions face numerous challenges in implementing regional autonomy. The smart city concept has been implemented by cities in various countries to tackle these issues. This article aims to comprehend and assess the political laws selected by the Indonesian government to address the challenges of implementing regional autonomy in urban areas using smart city concepts and indicators. The research method employed was normative research through a statutory regulations approach, in addition to a conceptual approach. The research material was secondary data comprising primary legal materials as well as secondary legal materials amassed via online and offline research at the library. The data was then analyzed in a descriptive manner. The analysis results demonstrate that numerous Indonesian cities have introduced smart city indicators. However, these indicators lack a legal foundation referencing smart city standards. The absence of specific regulations for smart cities in Indonesia has resulted in unstructured and immeasurable implementation. In Indonesia, the closest legal regulations or policies to the concept of a smart city are those outlined in Government Regulation Number 38 of 2017 concerning Innovation. Going forward, it is necessary to establish legal guidelines that contain specific standards for smart cities, from inception to implementation, in order to enhance regional autonomy in urban areas.

Legal Politics of Optimising the Implementation of Regional Autonomy in Urban Areas: Perspective of Smart City Concept

Urban regions face numerous challenges in implementing regional autonomy. The smart city concept has been implemented by cities in various countries to tackle these issues. This article aims to comprehend and assess the political laws selected by the Indonesian government to address the challenges of implementing regional autonomy in urban areas using smart city concepts and indicators. The research method employed was normative research through a statutory regulations approach, in addition to a conceptual approach. The research material was secondary data comprising primary legal materials as well as secondary legal materials amassed via online and offline research at the library. The data was then analyzed in a descriptive manner. The analysis results demonstrate that numerous Indonesian cities have introduced smart city indicators. However, these indicators lack a legal foundation referencing smart city standards. The absence of specific regulations for smart cities in Indonesia has resulted in unstructured and immeasurable implementation. In Indonesia, the closest legal regulations or policies to the concept of a smart city are those outlined in Government Regulation Number 38 of 2017 concerning Innovation. Going forward, it is necessary to establish legal guidelines that contain specific standards for smart cities, from inception to implementation, in order to enhance regional autonomy in urban areas.

Challenges of urban informality in Indian smart cities

India's smart cities initiative signals a clear turn towards the corporatisation of urban governance by entrusting planning responsibilities to special purpose vehicles (SPV) constituted as public sector companies in place of elected municipal governments. This commentary argues that the depoliticised approach of the SPV-driven smart city plans could be detrimental to the informal economy in the long run. Municipal politics has been a useful platform for the urban poor to negotiate their claims over the city, as there is a clientelistic relationship between urban informality and political actors. The scope for such negotiations has considerably shrunk in smart cities, with elite coalition bureaucrats and technocrats steering planning decisions.

Challenges of Smart Cities: Methods of Prioritization

Smart city development has gotten considerable recognition in systematic literature and international policies throughout the world. The study aims to identify the key barriers to smart cities from the review of existing literature and the views of experts in this area. This work further made an attempt on the prioritization of barriers to recognize the most important barrier category and ranking of specific barriers within the categories to the development of smart cities in India. Through the existing literature, this work explored 31 barriers to smart cities development and divided them into six categories. This research work employed the fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique to prioritize the selected barriers. Findings reveal that ‘Governance’ is documented as the most significant category of barriers to smart city development followed by ‘Economic; ‘Technology’; ‘Social’; ‘Environmental’ and ‘Legal and Ethical’. In this work, author also performed sensitivity analysis to show how robust is the findings of study. This research is useful to the government and policymakers for eradicating the potential interferences in smart city development initiatives in developing country like India.

Ecological quality assessment of five smart cities in India: a remote sensing index-based analysis

Ecological quality assessment of five smart cities in India: a remote sensing index-based analysis

Küresel Şehirlerin Akıllılığı ve Sürdürülebilirliği Üzerine Bir Araştırma: New York ve İstanbul

Cities are not only places where problems such as migration, unemployment, air pollu-tion, crime, and climate change arise, but also where many problems find solutions. After a literature review on the global city, smart sustainable city, and smart sustainab-le city indicators, this research examined and compared New York and Istanbul based on certain indicators. The study aims to identify the strengths, weaknesses, commona-lities, and differences between cities. The performance of cities can be compared by ranking them according to different indicators. Ranking the cities can also enable them to monitor their development in different areas over the years. However, a rank-based performance comparison alone may limit a deeper view of cities' commonalities, diffe-rences, opportunities, and weaknesses. Therefore, this study examines the areas of development of New York and Istanbul from a smart sustainable city perspective, taking into account eleven different indicators including population, economy, educa-tion, energy, health, security, internet, job opportunities, transportation, water, and waste management.

Ranking Sustainable Smart City Indicators Using Combined Content Analysis and Analytic Hierarchy Process Techniques

Sustainable Smart Cities have a significant potential to ensure equal access to public services, achieve sustainability and governance transparency, improve livability, and anticipate and mitigate increasingly changing threats. This study aims at prioritizing a core set of Sustainable Smart City (SSC) indicators using a combined methodology: (a) Content Analysis and (b) Analytic Hierarchy Process. The study’s contribution is that it successfully developed a more robust ranking of the above-mentioned set of indicators by combining AHP and co-occurrence analyses. The final combined ranking is intended to serve as a Decision Support Tool to streamline the decision-making process and help decision-makers prioritize dimensions to measure, achieve, or monitor actions when they cannot be undertaken simultaneously in contexts of economic recessions, financial constraints, and resource mobilization challenges. The findings draw attention to the need for considering the concept of SSCs through the prism of interconnecting the various current technology-driven “smart silos” under an inclusive umbrella that focuses on the combinations and connectedness to achieve a systemic approach to sustainability and smartness that none of those single areas can achieve in isolation. The results also revealed an interesting paradox, which relegated the Technology and ICT dimension to the bottom of the ranking, contrary to the widespread consensus and opinion, opening an opportunity for discussion among peers.

Selection of optimum green energy source under smart city environment for sustainable energy management and planning: An eclectic decision

The purpose of this paper is to present a decision support framework, able to assess and optimize the energy use in smart cities. This paper has taken a sincere endeavour to develop an innovative integrated analytical framework as a benchmark to understand to what extent the energy has been consumed in smart city spectrum. Initially five sectors (construction, water management, transport, waste treatment and public services) of smart city and their corresponding sub-factors are identified based on industry, academia partnership. Once the data were gathered, those were analysed using various statistical tools. This research is useful for the policymakers, executive people, especially those are working or involved in smart city development projects. The developed framework helps to identify the significant energy consumption sector and also suggest the suitable green energy alternatives for developing a cleaner and sustainable future. As this study discusses the various parameters related to smart city energy consumption sector in western India, it will have a huge practical potential on the proposed operational smart cities in India. Literature has witnessed minimum number of studies have been carried out on this proposed framework and that could improve the wellbeing of the people living in the cities.

Smart Cities for the Sustainable Development of Local Communities: the Cases of the Volyn Region and the City of Lublin

The concept of a “smart city” is being actively implemented by several European cities to improve citizens’ quality of life and sustainability at the local community level. The article evaluates “smart city” programs adopted by Ukraine cities in the Volyn region based on well‑being assessment. To do so, a literature review was conducted to identify indicators to assess well‑being at the local level, and Benessere equo e sostenibile dei territori (BESdT, Equitable, and Sustainable Territorial Well‑being) was adopted. BESdT is an institutional measurement framework developed by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) to measure well‑being at the local level through a collection of indicators that cover different well‑being domains. The BESdT indicators available for Ukraine and Poland were collected and then measured. The main goals of the scientific research are to clarify if it is possible to use the BESdT indicators, which are used to assess smart cities in Southern Europe, for the countries of North‑Eastern Europe using the example of the Volyn region and the city of Lublin. The work investigates the indicators of smart cities and considers examples of their construction for 2003–2021. The results testify to the upward trend in implementing “smart city” programs in the regional context. In the Volyn region, the priority areas of project implementation are security, transport, and electricity. In this region, development can be identified concerning trends such as a reduced death rate, an improved balance between work and personal life, increased economic prosperity, and the improved environmental component and security of society. On the other hand, a reduction in innovation implementation and a loss of trust in the government were also identified. The analysis shows that the positive changes above are due to the actions of the central rather than the regional government. Based on the analysis, it was established that the countries of North‑Eastern Europe have the level of development of Smart City 3.0, except for Ukraine, which has generation 1.0, and in Southern Europe, generation 4.0.

Investigation of Smart Sustainable City Indicators of Sustainable Development—A Case Study of the City of Suwon

This paper aims to investigate the interlink between city sustainability development indicators and smart sustainable city indicators (SSCIs). While the sustainability development indicators of a city mostly rely on its sustainable development goals (SDGs), no investigations into whether these indicators imply SSCIs have been conducted. SSCIs are critical during the current unprecedented climate crisis and are necessary to facilitate a livable future. This study considers the city of Suwon as a case study. Suwon’s sustainable development policy adopts 10 SDGs among the 17 SDGs from the United Nations, later called Suwon SDGs (SSDGs). By conducting a content analysis, this study found that the indicators adopted from the SDGs require further investigation to evaluate the core SSCIs. Using text analytics, we found that Suwon’s policies focus on indicators in the local environment, such as the employment rates for every age category, even if the SSDG indicators incorporate the SDGs. The purpose of this analysis is to gain more attention from policymakers about the necessity of reconstructing and considering SSCIs as a part of a smart city’s sustainable development. Lessons and practical implications are discussed for future studies.

Proposal for a Comprehensive Tool to Measure Smart Cities under the Triple-Helix Model: Capacities Learning, Research, and Development

This paper discusses the measurement of smart cities using efficiency indices and proposes a comprehensive tool based on the triple-helix model to assess the learning, research, and development capabilities of smart cities. Existing smart city models are divergent and lack alignment, making it difficult to compare and evaluate cities. The proposed tool aims to contribute to science, technology, and innovation policies by assessing the capabilities of participants in the regional innovation system of smart cities. The study follows a non-experimental, cross-sectional, and descriptive methodology consisting of three stages: identification of variables, definition of variables, and construction of the tool. It finds that current smart city indicators focus primarily on technological aspects, efficiency, and management processes, overlooking important factors such as citizen engagement, their capacity to adopt technologies, and their research and knowledge-generation capabilities. This study makes a significant contribution to the field of smart city measurement and evaluation by using the triple-helix model as a conceptual framework. This approach strengthens the existing knowledge about this phenomenon and lays the foundation for future research in this area.

Mapping synergies and trade-offs between smart city dimensions: A network analysis

Smart cities have emerged to cope with economic and environmental challenges posed by modern-day complex city systems. This study hypothesized that overcoming such challenges with a smart city framework entails a systematic approach to increasing synergies and eliminating trade-offs between different smart city indicators. This study applied network analysis and used data from 33 smart cities worldwide for the period 2005–2019 to ascertain these synergies and trade-offs by introducing a modified framework of smart cities based on the community identification of interconnected smart city drivers. The findings of this study reveal that very few trade-offs exist in the network of smart city indicators compared to the identified synergies. Furthermore, the network statistics show that innovation, business sophistication, ICT infrastructure, and government effectiveness are key drivers of a smart city.

Heat waves characteristics intensification across Indian smart cities

Indian cities have frequently observed intense and severe heat waves for the last few years. It will be primarily due to a significant increase in the variation in heat wave characteristics like duration, frequency, and intensity across the urban regions of India. This study will determine the impact of future climate scenarios like SSP 245 and 585 over the heat wave characteristics. It will present the comparison between heat waves characteristics in the historical time (1981 to 2020) with future projections, i.e., D1 (2021–2046), D2 (2047–2072), and D3 (2073–2098) for different climate scenarios across Indian smart cities. It is observed that the Coastal, Interior Peninsular, and North-Central regions will observe intense and frequent heat waves in the future under SSP 245 and 585 scenarios. A nearly two-fold increase in heat wave' mean duration will be observed in the smart cities of the Interior Peninsular, Coastal, and North Central zones. Thiruvananthapuram city on the west coast has the maximum hazard associated with heat waves among all the smart cities of India under both SSPs. This study assists smart city policymakers in improving the planning and implementation of heat wave adaptation and mitigation plans based on the proposed framework for heat action plans and heat wave characteristics for improving urban health well-being under hot weather extremes in different homogeneous temperature zones.

A Hybrid Model for Performance Evaluation of Fixed VANETs using Novel 1C3N and Topology-Based Ad-Hoc Routing Protocols with Packet Loss Control Methods

Vehicular ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) play a significant role in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Design. Intelligent Transportation Systems are the first mandatory requirements for any smart city. Researchers are vigorously working on ITSs for smart cities and so VANETs have received a lot of attention. In VANETs, Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I) message transmissions are carried out using wireless access technologies like IEEE 802.11p and IEEE 1609 WAVE family of standards. The crucial challenge in the implementation of VANETs involves the task of deciding the routing protocol because unlike MANETs, handover in VANETs is extremely high. In this paper, a novel routing technique, One Caption for 3 Nodes (1C3N) algorithm is proposed. This algorithm is implemented along with other topology-based existing routing protocols for the implementation of VANETs in the Coimbatore-Urban Area (Indian Smart City). The performance evaluation is carried out by comparing metrics like goodput, Overhead, Packet delivery ratio (PDR), Packet loss ratio (PLR) and end-to-end delay for four existing VANET routing protocols. The results show that a proper combination of packet loss model with routing protocol enhances the goodput and reduces the overhead for a fixed VANET. It is observed that the proposed 1C3N routing technique provides 60-65% better goodput than the other four algorithms.

Data-Driven Approach in Knowledge-Based Smart City Management

The concept of smart city management is based on the implementation and use of advanced technologies, such as wireless sensors, intelligent vehicles, mobile networks, and data storage technologies. It involves integrating various information and communication technology solutions to efficiently manage a city's resources. Cities are investing in data-driven smart technologies to enhance performance and efficiency, thereby generating a large amount of data. Finding innovative ways to use this data helps improve city management and urban development. A data-driven city utilizes datafication to optimize its operations, functions, services, strategies, and policies. Datafication involves transforming various aspects of urban life into computerized data and extracting value from this information. This transformation is dependent on controlling the storage, management, processing, and analysis of the data, as well as utilizing the extracted knowledge to develop useful smart city solutions. Access to real-time data and information enables the provision of effective services that improve productivity, leading to environmental, social, and economic benefits. Both current and future smart cities have the potential to generate vast amounts of real-time data due to complex physical infrastructure and data-driven applications supported by social networks. This paper investigates how the emerging data-driven smart city is practiced and justified in terms of its innovative applied solutions. The aim of the paper is to explore the general conditions for implementing advanced data-driven technologies for smart city management, using knowledge from literature analysis and case studies. To understand this new urban phenomenon, a descriptive case study is used as a qualitative research methodology to examine and compare the possibilities of implementing data-driven approaches in knowledge-based smart city management. Seventeen case studies that use data-driven applications in real-world settings were identified from secondary sources and evaluated based on smart city indicators and related data-driven applications. Smart Cities were selected based on their rankings in the Digital Cities Index 2022, the Smart City Index 2022, and the IESE Cities in Motion Index 2022.

Does citizens’ participation moderate the relationship between the built environment and their quality of life in Indian smart cities?

Purpose This study aims to investigate the influence of the built environment of smart cities on citizens’ quality of life in a developing country like India, focusing on the role of citizens’ participation as a moderator. Design/methodology/approach This study used partial least square-based structural equation modelling to test the hypotheses using data from 542 sample respondents residing in five smart cities of India. Findings The findings of this study confirmed that the smart city-built environment dimensions of smart governance, smart economy, smart mobility, smart environment and smart living positively relate to citizen quality of life, except for the smart people dimension. This study also confirmed that citizen participation moderates the relationship between all six dimensions of the smart city-built environment and citizens’ quality of life. Originality/value This study investigates the relationship between the built environment of smart cities and residents’ quality of life and the moderating effect of citizen participation on this relationship.

DTI-BR model applied in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, for its transformation into a smart tourism destination

With the increasing concentration of people and services in urban centers, there is a growing prevalence of issues related to mobility, accessibility, housing, access to urban infrastructure, safety, leisure, tourism, sanitation, and sustainability. In response to the need for sustainability, these urban centers integrate information and communication technologies to optimize and assist in decision-making for public service management. As smart cities integrate the social, physical, and digital systems, they enable a participatory model of government management. Touristic cities, which include smart city indicators and integrate sustainability and technology throughout the tourism value chain, create sustainable development based on local limitations and capacities while enhancing the integration of technology throughout the tourism destination’s value proposition. Thus, this paper aims to analyze the municipality of Foz do Iguaçu as a smart tourism destination by applying the DTI-BR model. As a result, the application of the DTI-BR model in Foz do Iguaçu showed evidence that the municipality needs to improve its indicators to be considered a smart tourism destination, which implies the need for improvements in public-private partnerships for the municipality’s development as a smart city.

Development of freight trip generation model using observed and unobserved information of supply chain characteristics for a sustainable urban transformation

Supply Chain Characteristics (SCC) drive the city logistics to control the economic activities that support urban life and transformation. The dynamics of freight trip activity and SCC in city logistics are less understood by city planners, disrupting the prediction of urban Freight Trip Generation (FTG) models. To develop robust urban FTG models, the present study introduces the concept of estimating the freight trip activity using observed and unobserved (subjective) information of SCC for sustainable urban transport movement. Traditionally, the objective variable excludes the unobserved information of SCC while developing the FTG model; this gap can be addressed by incorporating subjective variables to measure both observed and unobserved information of SCC. A unique framework was designed by a combination of objective and subjective variables through Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) to estimate the freight trip activity. An Establishment Based Freight Survey (EBFS) collected from an Indian smart city (1793 samples) comprising various SCC was used to test the developed framework. Deployed EFA can identify the subjective variables using latent constructs to explain the observed and unobserved information in the SCC. Then, sequential execution of SEM with hypothesis path structure for estimating the freight trip activity. The direct, indirect, and total effects of the FTG model revealed added advantage of causal inter-relationship of urban freight trip activity and SCC between intermediate and pure receiver establishment. The developed FTG models using observed and unobserved information of SCC predicted freight trip activity with an accuracy of 57% for intermediate and 63% for pure receiver establishment. The effect of SSC on freight trip activity aids in creating sustainable urban freight transportation that could be an agile, responsive, and flexible adaptive system for the global market demand.

Smart Cities in Nepal: The concept, evolution and emerging patterns

Nepal is the least urbanized country in South Asia with approximately 28% of Nepalese living in urban areas, while it is also the fastest urbanizing country in with an annual urban population growth of 6%. Urban areas suffer from municipal physical and information infrastructure deficits and are at high risk from earthquakes, floods, fires, and landslides. Development and transformation into Smart Cities would be a new avenue in Nepali development trend. However, this is relatively new and is still in its early stages of development. The objective of this research is to assess the evolution, the emerging trends and future prospects of Smart City in Nepal. A literature review with qualitative method along with structured key informant interviews were conducted to obtain data. This study revealed that the concept of Smart Cities in Nepal is centered around the integration of technology and innovative solutions to address the challenges facing urban areas and improve the quality of life for citizens. The concept is driven by the rapid pace of urbanization, the increasing need for sustainable and resilient cities, and the growing recognition of the role that technology can play in addressing these challenges. Nepal has emphasized on sustainability, the integration of Smart City initiatives, and the use of smart technologies with the country's broader development goals. Smart City indicators have been developed to track the progress, yet they are not flexible. This study recommends that i) the indicators need to be kept flexible with adequate room for revision of resilience-related indicators, ii) appropriate focus should be given to interconnected components of Smart Cities and iii) development of a more transparent and accountable approach to Smart City thereby providing better opportunities to enhance quality of life and unlock economic growth potential.

Three decadal urban drought variability risk assessment for Indian smart cities

In 2015 the beginning of the Indian Smart Cities’ mission was one of the significant steps taken by the Indian government to make the urban environment resilient to climate change impact and extreme weather events like drought, floods, heatwaves, etc. This study computes the urban drought risk for Indian smart cities before the beginning of the Indian smart cities mission. This study considers three decadal variability (1982–2013) in meteorological, hydrological, vegetation, and soil moisture parameters for inducing water scarcity and drought conditions in urban regions. Hazards associated with urban drought-inducing parameters variability, vulnerability, and exposure of Indian smart cities were used to compute the Urban drought risk. The research investigations revealed the maximum urban drought risk for Bangalore, Chennai, and Surat cities. Northwest, West Central, and South Peninsular urban regions have higher risk among all the urban regions of India. Indian smart cities mission can be used to make Indian cities resilient to urban drought risk and increase their sustainability. The present research aligned with several national and international agreements by providing an urban drought risk rank for Indian cities, making them less vulnerable to extreme weather events and improving their resilience to climate change.