Sustainable Development Of Smart Cities Research Articles

Approaches, Advances, and Applications in the Sustainable Development of Smart Cities: A Commentary from the Guest Editors

Environmental externalities of the Anthropocene—mainly generated from population growth, rapid urbanization, high private motor vehicle dependency, the deregulated market, mass livestock production, and excessive consumerism—have placed serious concerns for the future of natural ecosystems, which we are a part of. For instance, global climate change—the biggest challenge we have ever faced—is directly impacting wellbeing, and even the existence of humankind, in the long run. During the last two decades, the notion of the smart city—particularly the sustainable development of smart cities—has become a popular topic not only for scholars, particularly in the fields of technology, science, urban and environmental planning, development, and management, but also for urban policymakers and professional practitioners. This was due to digital technologies becoming a powerful enabler in stimulating paradigmatic shifts in urban development-related visions, strategies, implementation, and learning. This paper offers a critical review of the key literature on the issues relating to approaches, advances, and applications in the sustainable development of smart cities. It also introduces contributions from the Special Issue, and speculates on the prospective research directions to place necessary mechanisms to secure a smart and sustainable urban future for all.

A Comprehensive Study of the Use of LoRa in the Development of Smart Cities

The New Urban Agenda (Agenda 2030) adopted at the United Nations Conference related to Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) in the year 2016 has the goal of prompting cities to achieve the identified Sustainable Development Goals by the year 2030. In this context, cities can experiment strategies of circular economy for the optimization of resources, waste reduction, reuse, and recycling. The data generated by the components of an Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem can contribute in two relevant ways to a smart city model: (1) by the generation of a circular economy and (2) by the creation of intelligence to improve the decision-making processes by citizens or city managers. In this context, it is in our interest to understand the most relevant axes of the research related to IoT, particularly those based on the LoRa technology. LoRa has attracted the interest of researchers because it is an open standard and contributes to the development of sustainable smart cities, since they are linked to the concepts of a circular economy. Additionally, the intention of this work is to identify the technological or practical barriers that hamper the development of solutions, find possible future trends that could exist in the context of smart cities and IoT, and understand how they could be exploited by the industry and academy.

Geospatial Dashboards for Monitoring Smart City Performance

Geospatial dashboards have attracted increasing attention from both user communities and academic researchers since the late 1990s. Dashboards can gather, visualize, analyze and advise on urban performance to support sustainable development of smart cities. We conducted a critical review of the research and development of geospatial dashboards, including the integration of maps, spatial data analytics, and geographic visualization for decision support and real-time monitoring of smart city performance. The research about this kind of system has mainly focused on indicators, information models including statistical models and geospatial models, and other related issues. This paper presents an overview of dashboard history and key technologies and applications in smart cities, and summarizes major research progress and representative developments by analyzing their key technical issues. Based on the review, we discuss the visualization model and validity of models for decision support and real-time monitoring that need to be further researched, and recommend some future research directions.

Development of Smart Cities and Its Sustainability: A Smart City Framework

Objective of the paper is to get analyze the scientific studies by focusing on smart city concepts and sustainability to understand better. For doing such thing, the study identifies the information about the different existing and recent technologies, various research, different models and various frameworks. The methodology used for this research is qualitative by an organized review of different literatures, which examines the important terminologies like, “Smart city”, “Urban Computing” and “Sustainability”, focusing on the sustainable development of smart cities. This review gives detailed information regarding the recent scientific piece of writing focusing variety of issues related to smart cities and sustainability. This review may provide a base to the researchers looking for surrounding information to explore more. The finding gives important insights for the scholars researching in the area under discussion, and managers are trying to apply those in their respective cities. In the last section we have proposed a three layered framework of smart cities which includes the supporting technologies, pillars of smart city and the society which gets benefitted.

The Role of 5G Technology in Sustainable Development of Smart Cities

The main goal of this scientific research is to examine the role of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the sustainable development of smart cities. Thus, we have used descriptive analysis and critical comparative analysis in order to highlight the impact of the new generation of 5G technologies on the smart development of the main areas that form the structure of a city. The main results of this scientific article have shown that the benefits of integrating 5G technology are decisive for the smart, inclusive and long-term development of a city as a whole, but in order to sustainably benefit from these, it is imperative that cities / states create an efficient implementation framework in terms of technological infrastructure, human capital, innovation, internal regulations and users.

A DIY Approach for the Design of Mission-Planning Architecture Using Autonomous Task–Object Mapping and the Deployment Model in Mission-Critical IoT Systems

Recently, the World Economic Forum (WEF) highlighted mission-critical Internet of Things (MC-IoT) applications as one of the six enablers of sustainable development of smart cities. MC-IoT refers to systems which exacerbate properties like availability, reliability, safety, and security in an application environment of heterogeneously connected physical things and virtual things whose failure could lead to severe consequences such as life loss. The sole characteristic of the mission-critical system is its compliance with real-time behavior. As a result of the critical nature of these systems, it is essential to design the system with sufficient clarity so that none of the requirements is misinterpreted. For this, the involvement of non-technical stakeholders and policymakers is crucial. Previous studies on mission-critical structures mainly focus on the communication overheads, and overlook the design and planning of them. Therefore, in this paper, we present an architecture which enables mission planning on a do-it-yourself plane. We present a task–object mapping and deployment model where different tasks are mapped onto virtual objects and deployed on physical hardware in a task–object pair. The system uses semantic knowledge for autonomous task mapping and suggestions to further aid the orchestration of the process. The tasks are autonomously mapped onto the devices based on the correlation index; this is computed based on the attribute similarities, thus making the system flexible. The performance of the proposed architecture is evaluated with different key performance indicators under different load conditions and the response time is found to be under a few seconds even at peak load conditions.

Sustainable smart city development framework for developing countries

ABSTRACTBasic requirements of sustainable smart cities in a developing country are the entitlement of facilities. Here, an index named Smart Sustainable City Development Index (SSCDI) has been developed for three Indian Smart Cities. A hierarchical method has been used to construct the index with multiple layers of indicators capturing characteristics of the dimensions such as social, economic, environment, culture and lifestyle. This index is used to assess performances of the three case study cities based on the scores in various indicators. This SSCDI framework provides a conceptual landscape for developing countries for planning their sustainable urban development and evaluation of performances.

Characteristics of Smart Sustainable City Development: Implications for Project Management

Projects and project management (PM) are becoming a way of working, and many changes in society have evolved because of projects. However, will the societal agenda also influence the project management discipline? Societal issues generated by urban population growth and rapid urbanization arise in cities. Making a city “smart” and sustainable is emerging as a strategy to mitigate these issues. How does this development impact project management? In order to answer this question, we performed meaningful learning by mapping the concepts for Smart Sustainable Cities (SSC) and project management and developing prior and post concept maps. We identified four major findings describing the implication of societal issues on project management: quality of life acts as a societal objective for PM; PM governs autonomous projects with new business models; and PM success criteria are related to stakeholders and long-term effects, as well as extensive connection to the digital world with consideration of the privacy and ethics. From this, we were able to redefine the definition of project management as “a collaborative endeavor of all affected stakeholders equivalently participating in exploring and exploiting, via an autonomous temporary organization, fit-for-purpose deliverables with connections to the digital platform, thereby aiming to prepare the entities of the affected stakeholders for the future”. Our study is novel and relevant for PM and SSC practice: societal issues are on the strategy agenda of many governments and companies, and these will drive the projects that are performed in this environment. The project management community should align with this development, since these challenges are part of their environment. As a start, a comprehensive understanding of the impact of societal issues is relevant to build new definitions, competences, and supporting processes.

Vehicle motion segmentation using rigid motion constraints in traffic video

Vehicle motion segmentation is an important task in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) for the sustainable development of smart city. In this paper, a novel trajectory clustering method is proposed using the rigid motion constraints (RMC) for the vehicle motion segmentation. Firstly, camera calibration is done for converting the 2D images to a copy one in 3D world. Then, the inverse projection image (IPI) can be obtained with a known 3D height information and the 2D image. Secondly, we present and verify the RMC of the feature point trajectories in the same rigid object and different rigid objects. By analyzing simulation results, we use the RMC as a measure to define the similarity function. Finally, spectral clustering is adopted to achieve the trajectory clustering, which contains two stages: initial clustering and inter-class merging. By applying this clustering method in actual traffic scene, much more stable clustering results can be obtained. Experimental results on traffic video demonstrate that the proposed method has a good performance in different traffic scenes. Moreover, its accuracy can reach 96% compared with other methods.

Research on Information Security System of Smart City Based on Information Security Requirements

In the process of smart city construction, information security is an important factor to ensure the sustainable development of smart city. The paper focuses on information security problems in the construction of smart city, and explores the overall framework and construction contents of information security system. First of all, the paper summarizes the characteristics of smart city information system, and analyzes the requirements for information security. Then, combined with the relevant standards and norms of information security, the paper puts forward construction ideas of information security system. On this basis, the overall framework of information security system is constructed with a global perspective, which includes three systems:management system, technology system, construction and operation system. At the same time, the construction contents and guarantee strategies of each system are put forward. The establishment of information security system helps to ensure safe management and operation of smart city. This research provides a reference for the related research of information security in smart city.

Backcasting in futures studies: a synthesized scholarly and planning approach to strategic smart sustainable city development

Backcasting as a scholarly and planning approach is increasingly used in futures studies in fields related to urban sustainability as an alternative to traditional planning approaches and a formal element of future strategic initiatives. It is viewed as a natural step in operationalizing sustainable development within different societal spheres. As a holistic urban development strategy, smart sustainable cities represent a manifestation of sustainable development as a process of change and a strategic approach to achieving the long-term goals of sustainability. Achieving smart sustainable cities represents an instance of urban sustainability, a concept that refers to a desired state in which a city strives to retain the balance of socio-ecological system through sustainable development as a desired trajectory. This long-term goal requires fostering linkages between scientific and social research, technological innovations, institutional practices, and policy design and planning in relevance to urban sustainability. It also requires a long-term vision, a transdisciplinary approach, and a system-oriented perspective on addressing environmental, economic, and social issues. These requirements are at the core of backcasting as an approach to futures studies. Backcasting is a special kind of scenario methodology to develop future models for smart sustainable city as a planning tool for urban sustainability. Goal-oriented backcasting approaches declare long-range targets that lie quite far in the future. Visionary images of a long-term future can stimulate an accelerated movement towards achieving the goals of urban sustainability. The backcasting approach is found to be well-suited for long-term urban sustainability solutions due to its normative, goal-oriented, and problem-solving character. Also, it is particularly useful when dealing with complex problems and transitions, the current trends are part of the problem, and different directions of development can be allowed given the wide scope and long time horizon considered. A number of recent futures studies using backcasting have underlined the efficacy of this scholarly and planning approach in terms of indicating policy pathway for sustainability transitions and thus supporting policymakers and facilitating and guiding their actions. However, as there are a number of backcasting approaches used in different domains, and the backcasting framework is adaptive and contextual in nature, it is deemed highly relevant and useful to devise a scholarly and planning approach to strategic smart sustainable city development. This paper has a fourfold purpose. It aims (1) to provide a comparative account of the most commonly applied approaches in futures studies dealing with technology and sustainability (forecasting and backcasting); (2) to review the existing backcasting methodologies and discuss the relevance of their use in terms of their steps and guiding questions in analyzing strategic smart sustainable city development as an area that is at the intersection of city development, sustainable development, and technology development; (3) to synthesize a backcasting approach based on the outcome of the review and discussion; and (4) to examine backcasting as a scholarly methodology and planning approach by looking at its use in the Gothenburg 2050 Project, as well as to use this case to illustrate the core of the synthesized approach. The synthesized scholarly and planning approach serves to help researchers and scholars in analyzing strategic smart sustainable city development to assist planners, policymakers, and decision-makers in their endeavor to implement smart sustainable cities.

Internet of Things-enabled smart cities: State-of-the-art and future trends

The dramatic spread of urbanization in modern cities requires smart solutions to address critical issues such as mobility, healthcare, energy, and civil infrastructure. The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the most promising enabling technologies for tackling these challenges by creating a massive world-wide network of interconnected physical objects embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity. Arguably, IoT is becoming the building block for next generation smart cities owing to its potential in exploiting sustainable information and communication technologies. The rapid development of the IoT is impacting several scientific and engineering application domains. This paper presents a comprehensive literature review of key features and applications of the IoT paradigm to support sustainable development of smart cities. An emphasis is placed on concomitance of the IoT solutions with other enabling technologies such as cloud computing, robotics, micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), wireless communications, and radio-frequency identification (RFID). Furthermore, a case study is presented to demonstrate how an affordable and suitable IoT-based working prototype can be designed for real-time monitoring of civil infrastructure. Finally, challenges and future directions for IoT-based smart city applications are discussed.

Privacy-enhancing aggregation of Internet of Things data via sensors grouping

Big data collection practices using Internet of Things (IoT) pervasive technologies are often privacy-intrusive and result in surveillance, profiling, and discriminatory actions over citizens that in turn undermine the participation of citizens to the development of sustainable smart cities. Nevertheless, real-time data analytics and aggregate information from IoT devices open up tremendous opportunities for managing and regulating smart city infrastructures in a more efficient and sustainable way. The privacy-enhancing aggregation of distributed sensor data, such as residential energy consumption or traffic information, is the research focus and challenge tackled in this paper. Citizens have the option to choose their privacy level by reducing the quality of the shared data at a cost of a lower accuracy in data analytics services. A baseline scenario is considered in which IoT sensor data are shared directly with an untrustworthy central aggregator. A grouping mechanism is introduced that improves privacy by sharing data aggregated first at a group level compared to a baseline scenario in which each individual shares data directly to the central aggregator. Group-level aggregation obfuscates sensor data of individuals, in a similar fashion as differential privacy and homomorphic encryption schemes, thus inference of privacy-sensitive information from single sensors becomes computationally harder compared to the baseline scenario. The proposed system and its generic applicability are evaluated using real-world data from two smart city pilot projects. Privacy under grouping increases, while preserving the accuracy of the baseline scenario. Intra-group influences of privacy by one group member on the other ones are measured and fairness on privacy is found to be maximized between group members with similar privacy choices. Several grouping strategies are compared. Grouping by proximity of privacy choices provides the highest privacy gains. The implications of the strategy on the design of incentives mechanisms are discussed.

Efficient Identity-Based Encryption Scheme with Equality Test in Smart City

To support a sustainable development of smart city, smart grid is an indispensable part. Sensor technology in smart gird enables interactive real-time data transmission between cloud and the edge of the network. There are a number of research challenges in the design of smart grids. One of these research challenges is balancing customer privacy and the cloud-based power system's function optimization. Identity-based encryption with equality test (IBEET) scheme has recently been identified as a viable solution, in which customers can delegate a trapdoor to the power system control server and the server then searches on the encrypted data to determine whether two different ciphertexts are encryptions of the same plaintext. Unfortunately, existing schemes are inefficient and the trapdoor could be used to perform equality test on any message; thus, leakage of privacy. In this paper, we propose an efficient IBEET scheme with bilinear pairing, which reduces the need for time-consuming HashToPoint function and each trapdoor could only be used to perform the equality test on a particular keyword. We then prove the security of our scheme for one-way chosen-ciphertext security against a chosen identity (OW-ID-CCA) attack in the random oracle model (ROM). The performance evaluation of our scheme demonstrates that in comparison to the scheme of Ma (2016), our scheme achieves a reduction of 36.7 and 39.24 percent in computation costs during the encryption phase and test phase, respectively.

A foundational framework for smart sustainable city development: Theoretical, disciplinary, and discursive dimensions and their synergies

In the subject of smart sustainable cities, the underlying theories are a foundation for practice. Moreover, scholarly research in the field of smart sustainable cities operates out of the understanding that advances in the underlying knowledge necessitate pursuing multifaceted questions that can only be resolved from the vantage point of interdisciplinarity or transdisciplinarity. Indeed, research problems in this field are inherently too complex to be addressed by single disciplines. The PhD study addressing the topic of smart sustainable city development falls within the broad research field of sustainability transition and sustainability science where ICT is seen as a salient factor given its transformational, disruptive, and synergetic effects as an enabling, integrative, and constitutive technology. In light of this, the approach to the PhD study is of an applied theoretical kind, and its aim is to investigate and analyze how to advance and sustain the contribution of sustainable urban forms to the goals of sustainable development with support of ICT of pervasive computing. This is to primarily create a framework for strategic smart sustainable city development based on scientific principles, theories, and academic disciplines and discourses used to guide urban actors in their practice towards sustainability and analyze its impact. This involves the application of a set of integrative foundational elements drawn from urban planning, urban design, sustainability, sustainable development, sustainability science, data science, computer science, complexity science, systems theory, systems thinking, and ICT. Accordingly, it is deemed of high significance to devise a multidimensional framework consisting of relevant theories and academic disciplines and discourses that underpin the development of smart sustainable cities as a set of future practices. This framework in turn emphasizes the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary nature and orientation of the topic of smart sustainable cities and thus the relevance of pursuing an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach into studying this topic. Therefore, this paper endeavors to systematize the very complex and dense scientific area of smart sustainable cities in terms of identifying, distilling, and structuring the core dimensions of a foundational framework for smart sustainable city development as a set of future practices. In doing so, it focuses on a number of fundamental theories along with academic disciplines and discourses, with the aim of setting a framework that analytically relates city development, sustainability, and ICT, while emphasizing how and to what extent sustainability and ICT have particularly become influential in city development in modern society. In addition, this paper offers an in–depth interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary discussion covering topics of high relevance to the PhD study and at the heart of the very synergic relationship between the theoretical, disciplinary, and discursive dimensions of the foundational framework underpinning smart sustainable city development. These dimensions thus form the basis for the framework for strategic smart sustainable city development that is under investigation and will be developed based on a backcasting approach to strategic planning. This study provides an important lens through which to understand a set of influential theories and established academic disciplines and discourses with high potential for integration, fusion, and practicality in relation to the practice of smart sustainable city development.

A Sustainable Fiscal Budget Design for Smart City Development a City Built on Technology and Wisdom

A sustainable fiscal budget design is first started by looking at the government organizational structure holistically. A sustainable smart city development requires the application of theories because it is a good practice, raises the standard and quality, and increases professionalism. It requires the use of multidiscipline knowledge, applied through a strategic and comprehensive planning based on factual evidence and scientific analysis and presentation. A comprehensive planning indicates transparency. A sustainable fiscal budget requires the government to look at its organization structure holistically. This holistic approach encourages constant use of multidiscipline knowledge, increases creativity, promotes a continuous forward thinking, and makes the planning tasks more meaningful and lucrative. It creates in people the sense of humanity and sense of belonging - what they can do better to serve their fellow citizens or to make a meaningful contribution to their country. Technology is a tool to accomplish the tasks to meet the objectives of the organizations or the state. At a time where the government is very fragmented due to privatization, designing the fiscal budget through the holistic approach by looking at the organizational structure gives several benefits such as it keeps the government to stay in control, reduces corruption, minimizes social exclusion and economic marginalization, and continuously creating jobs in multiplicity at every level of government. Regardless of the type of government, the use of theory on application helps to use up the multidiscipline knowledge, the tasks are more professional in its application and presentation, and it leads to a democratic government.

Sustainable development of smart cities: a systematic review of the literature

This paper aims to analyse scientific studies focusing on both environmental sustainability and smart city concepts to understand the relationship between these two. In order to do so the study identifies information about researchers, models, frameworks and tools focused on the chosen themes. This research uses a qualitative methodology, through a systematic review of the literature, which examines the terms, ‘smart city’ and ‘sustainability’, aimed at sustainable development of smart cities. For this, three databases were used: Scopus, Science Direct, and Emerald Insight. This paper provides detailed information on the most recent scientific articles focusing on smart cities and sustainability issues. The paper can serve as a basis for researchers seeking background information for further investigations. The findings provide invaluable insights for scholars researching on the subject, and public managers considering applying those into practice in their cities.

Winning the SDG battle in cities: how an integrated information ecosystem can contribute to the achievement of the 2030 sustainable development goals

AbstractIn 2015, the United Nations adopted an ambitious development agenda composed of 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs), which are to be reached by 2030. Beyond SDG 11 concerning the development of sustainable cities, many of the SDGs target activities falling within the responsibility of local governments. Thus, cities will play a leading role in the achievement of these goals, and we argue that the information systems (IS) community must be an active partner in these efforts. This paper aims to contribute to the achievement of the SDGs by developing a conceptual model to explain the role of IS in building smart sustainable cities and providing a framework of action for IS researchers and city managers. To this end, we conduct grounded theory studies of two green IS used by an internationally recognized smart city to manage water quality and green space. Based on these findings, we articulate a model explaining how an integrated information ecosystem enables the interactions between three interrelated spheres – administrative, political and sustainability – to support the development of smart sustainable cities. Moving from theory to practice, we use two real‐world scenarios to demonstrate the applicability of the model. Finally, we define an action framework outlining key actions for cities and suggest corresponding questions for future research. Beyond a simple call‐to‐action, this work provides a much‐needed foundation for future research and practice leading to a sustainable future for all.

STANDARDIZATION AND UNIFICATION OF METADATA TO ENSURE THE DEVELOPMENT OF “SMART” SUSTAINABLE CITIES

The article focuses on the study of the essence, the principles of compilation and the scope of international standards ISO (International Organization for Standardization) application, which summarize the best practices in a wide range of areas that contribute to the functioning of the city, community and the achievement of the goals of sustainable development of the Organization of United Nations to overcome poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity. The basic principles of ISO functioning are analyzed. According to the results of the research, the essence of the main stages of standards development is defined and outlined. The list of ISO technical committees that promote the development of «smart» cities is given. The main elements of the «smart» city are used to classify the standards. The main functions of the standards of strategic, process and technical levels are considered. In order to further analyze and create the information and analytical base for the study of «smart» sustainable cities development, the metadata for sustainable development of the «smart» city were systematized, the essence of the main international standards of the strategic, process and technical levels was considered. The basic provisions of these standards can be adopted by all relevant stakeholders involved in the planning, development and operation of intellectual community infrastructures, including planners, developers, operators and suppliers. Also, the international standards that are under development are considered separately. With the help of international standards, individual cities, countries and regions of the world can become «smarter» step by step. National implementation and use of international standards can support and ensure the smooth and integrated development of smart sustainable cities.

Bootstrapping smart cities through a self-sustainable model based on big data flows

We have a clear idea today about the necessity and usefulness of making cities smarter, the potential market size, and trials and tests. However, it seems that business around Smart Cities is having difficulties taking off and is thus running short of projected potentials. This article looks into why this is the case and proposes a procedure to make smart cities happen based on big data exploitation through the API stores concept. To this end, we first review involved stakeholders and the ecosystem at large. We then propose a viable approach to scale business within that ecosystem. We also describe the available ICT technologies and finally exemplify all findings by means of a sustainable smart city application. Over the course of the article, we draw two major observations, which are seen to facilitate sustainable smart city development. First, independent smart city departments (or the equivalent) need to emerge, much like today's well accepted IT departments, which clearly decouple the political element of the improved city servicing from the underlying technologies. Second, a coherent three-phase smart city rollout is vital, where in phase 1 utility and revenues are generated; in phase 2 only-utility service is also supported; and in phase 3, in addition, a fun/leisure dimension is permitted.