SMART City

According to the United Nations, already in July 2007, the urban population surpassed the rural population in the world. Moreover, this proportion is expected to increase dramatically in the coming years to the point that by 2050, almost 70% of the world population will be urban and many cities will have over 10 million inhabitants. It is estimated that by 2025 in China alone, there will be 221 cities in excess of 10 million inhabitants. Europe currently has 35 such cities. Therefore, cities have a major impact on the economic and social development of nations. They are genuine platforms where people live, where companies have their business and in which numerous services are provided. What’s more, they are major centers of consumption of resources. Currently, cities consume 75% of the world’s resources and energy and generate 80% of greenhouse gases, occupying only 2% of the world’s territory.

Without a doubt, this evolution raises a very important change with regard to the deployment and management of all types of infrastructures within cities. There is huge potential to be ‘smart’ about city planning and city development. With the industrial revolution, robotic automations, smart applications and digital innovation, there are huge opportunities to apply technology.

Current technology adaption within the Smart Cities concept include:

City mobility: traffic management in real time, management of passenger transport means, management of car parks, fleet management, management of the use of bicycles, payment of tolls, support in the use of electric vehicles, tracking applications and logistics, car sharing services, etc.
Energy efficiency and, in general, sustainable management of resources: Smart energy grid, smart metering, urban waste collection and processing, management of public parks and gardens, measuring of environmental parameters, etc.
Education 4.0: e-learning and teleworking, e-tourism and cultural information, e-commerce, etc.
Management of the city’s infrastructures: management of public buildings and building automation, management of public infrastructures and urban facilities, reporting of incidents by citizens, etc.
e-Government with automated services
Public safety: management of public emergency services and civil defence, video-surveillance and security of citizens, fire prevention and detection, etc.
Getting information on viable park-and-ride options to drivers, to complete a journey using public transport to avoid congestion ahead of them.
Smart Parking: Combining sensors, smartphone apps, and Wi-Fi infrastructure to provide parking availability to citizens in real time
Smart Transport: Smart Transport relates to the field of road transport, including infrastructure, vehicles and users, and in traffic management and mobility management, as well as for interfaces with other modes of transport.
SMART Utility: Utilities organizations (i.e. power, gas, water and waste) utilize advanced technologies in communications, software, computing and mapping to streamline their own businesses, and, in some cases, to fundamentally change the way they operate and interact with the end-customer.
Health 4.0: telemonitoring and telemedicine, telecare and social services, public health services, etc.
Sustainable City: this includes encouraging cycling as a viable option, with prioritization for cycle lanes and active solar road studs showing cyclists the safest route ahead through complex junctions. As well as on low-use roads at night, using LED streetlights that activate when approached by cyclists.

A smart city can therefore be summarized as been an urban area that uses different types of electronic data collection sensors to supply information which is used to manage assets and resources efficiently. This includes data collected from citizens, devices, and assets that is processed and analyzed to monitor and manage traffic and transportation systems, power plants, water supply networks, waste management, law enforcement, information systems, schools, libraries, hospitals, and other community services. The main purpose is to create an environment in which citizens are interconnected and easily share information anywhere in the city.

This is increasingly more important, as the public are looking at the economic and environmental impact of urban living and commuting. However, the kind of barriers that prevent public administrations from effectively harnessing emerging technologies have already been identified (European Commission, 2016), including rigid and ineffective internal and inter-institutional processes, lack of understanding of stakeholders’ needs, and business processes not properly designed for effective implementation; all of this compounded by heterogeneous, fragmented and non-interoperable systems.

Since the typical public sector business model takes a centralised institutional approach, based around administrative silos, with little collaboration with other actors; innovative approaches are needed that exploit existing and often under-used resources, contextualise the implementation of public products, process and services to the needs of citizens, business, civil servants and society at large. Seamless, citizen-centred public administration depends fundamentally on semantics (i.e. the computable representation of meaning) for the integration of services, processes, systems, data, and applications.

This research therefore, aims at support innovation and transformation of public services fit for the implementation of Smart cities strategies. Built upon the SMART City Ontology to which Industry 4.0 technologies, Robotic automation, smart applications and other digital innovations can be applied.

Together with the Global University Alliance (GUA) the standards organizations LEADing Practice and some of its partners ISO, IEEE, NATO, CSIR, OMG, intend to solicit information and research into basis for the comparison, assessment, and selection of SMART City concepts and their evolution, adaption, implementation.

Research Focus

Information and research is sought on topics related to the understanding and comparison of SMART City concepts, including, but not limited to:

What is a SMART City
Which different SMART City concepts exist
Comparing SMART City concepts, method and approaches
What are the most common SMART City concepts, method and approaches
Identify missing concepts
Specify the difference and the common between SMART City modelling, SMART City engineering and SMART City architecture concepts
Ontology foundations of SMART City concepts
- What common Ontology aspects do they have?
- What common meta objects do they have?
- What are the most common object descriptions?
- Are there any underlying meta models
SMART City Business Model
SMART City Operating Model
SMART City and viewpoint considerations:
- Typical models they work with?
- What challenges are not being addressed by current models?
- What are the most common templates and model are used?
- Are there any underlying meta models
- Are there missing components
SMART City Process Maps within
- SMART Transport/Traffic
- SMART Media & Communications
- SMART Buildings
- SMART Waste
- SMART Water
- SMART Energy
SMART Enterprise Architecture considerations:
- Typical SMART City Business and Technology Architecture views?
- Typical SMART City Layered Architecture views
SMART City LifeCycle considerations:
- Typical SMART City LifeCycle phases?
- What are their tasks/steps within the phases?
- Continuous feedback loop build into the Urban development plan and execution
SMART City Maturity considerations:
- Does a maturity concept fit to SMART City?
- What are the most common maturity areas that could fit to SMART City?
Categorization considerations:
- What are the most common categorization and classification used in SMART City concepts?
- Are there specific Categorization schemes?
- Are there specific SMART City concept tagging types
Patterns
- What works well (repeatable patters)
- What doesn’t work well (anti-patterns)

Research Team

The SMART City research and analysis contacts are:

Research Coordinator:
Elizabeth Uruchurtu, Sheffield Hallam University
Head of SMART City Research, Global University Alliance

The team involved in this work are among others the following academics, researchers and analysts:

Comparing SMART City patterns and concepts, Prof. Mark von Rosing
SMART City Ontology (meta objects), Prof. Wim Laurier
SMART City Semantics (relations and rules), Dr. Simon Polovina
The IoT and Industry 4.0 techniques within SMART City concepts, George Etzel
SMART City Urban Planning, Barry Goodchild
Typical enterprise models applied, Prof. Hans Scheruhn
Most common SMART City strategies applied, Jamie Caine
Most common SMART City KPIs, Ulrik Foldager
Most common SMART City Roles, Maxim Arzumanyan
Most common process Stakeholder & Concerns, Maria Hove
Sustainable City, Prof. David Coloma Guerrero & Karin Gräslund
Smart City Performance, Karin Gräslund
Most common Smart City forces identified, Gabriella Janina
Most common Enterprise Sustainability strategies applied, Jamie Caine (academic researcher)

As far as partners are involved, these are the collaboration partner contacts:

Enterprise Standards Body:
Georg Etzel
LEADing Practice, Co-CEO

Enterprise Architecture Framework:
John A. Zachman
Inventor and Father of Enterprise Architecture
Zachman International

International Organization for Standardization:
Johan H Bendz
ISO, SC 7, WG 42 Convener

IEEE Coordinator:
Rich Hilliard
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Editor of IEEE Std 1471:2000
Project editor, ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010

Software Standards Body:
Henk DeMan
OMG VDML Chairman

NATO Coordinator:
Johan Goossens
NATO Allied Command Transformation
Branch Head, Technology & Human Factors

UNESCO Coordinator:
Dr. Selin N. Şenocak
UNESCO Chair Holder
Cultural Diplomacy, Governance and Education
Director, Occidental Studies Applied Research Center
Political Sciences and International Relations Faculty Member

CSIR Coordinator:
Rentia Barnard
Research Institute CSIR
Enterprise Architect Research Group Leader

Information Security Standards Body:
Steve Durbin
CEO of Information Security Forum