A Decade Review on Smart Cities: Paradigms, Challenges and Opportunities

E. Papageorgiou S. Trang Ilja Nastjuk

28 November 2022

In the last two decades, the concept of smart cities has attracted significant research and policy attention. Despite its extensive discussion in literature, the term smart city is a fuzzy concept (Albino et al., 2015; Angelidou, 2014; Anthopoulos, 2015). It commonly refers to environments in which information and communication technologies (ICTs) are utilized to offer innovative services to citizens in order to enhance their well-being and to stimulate sustainable economic growth (Yigitcanlar et al., 2018). According to Giffinger et al. (2007), the key defining characteristics of smart cities include smart economy, smart people, smart governance, smart mobility, smart environment, and smart living, addressing key topics such as economic competitiveness, educational level of citizens, quality of social interactions, flexibility of labor market, governmental strategies, innovative transportation systems, sustainable resource management, or public safety. However, since the introduction of the term smart cities in the ’90 s, numerous perspectives on smart cities have emerged (e.g., Chourabi et al., 2012; Dameri & Cocchia, 2013; Hosseini et al., 2018; Yigitcanlar et al., 2018). One predominant perspective relates to the role of smart ICTs to improve the quality of citizens’ life (e.g., Bifulco et al., 2016; Dameri, 2017; Ferro et al., 2013; Gade, 2019; Van Dinh et al., 2020). Smart ICTs are wireless, embedded in objects, and record the environment using sensors (Yigitcanlar & Lee, 2014). They provide the critical infrastructure for more intelligent and interconnected solutions in areas such as healthcare, real estate, utilities, transportation, public safety, and administration (Washburn et al., 2009). In the energy grid domain, for example, smart ICTs help collect and share consumption data to optimize energy management (Farmanbar et al., 2019). In the transportation domain, smart ICTs enable safe, socially inclusive, and sustainable multi-modal transportation networks, which allow citizens to travel with ease (Herrenkind et al., 2019; Lembcke et al., 2021; Nastjuk et al., 2020; Nikitas et al., 2017; Rocha et al., 2020; Trang et al., 2015). In the building domain, smart ICTs can help to establish so-called “zero energy buildings” by significantly reducing the energy demand during the lifecycle of residential and commercial buildings (Kylili & Fokaides, 2015). In the healthcare domain, smart wearable devices can, for example, cater for remote diagnosis, medical prescriptions, and treatment of patients (Ghazal et al., 2021) or allow for the effective monitoring of public health (Trang et al., 2020). In the education domain, smart ICTs promote a more engaged learning experience in which learners can “learn at anytime, anywhere, in any way and at any pace” (Liu et al., 2017, p. 33). The importance of ICTs as a key driver for smart cities varies in the aforementioned application fields. In domains such as energy or transportation management, smart ICTs are essential enablers and require big data processing capabilities, while in domains such as education or public administration, smart ICTs have a more limited role where processing large volumes of data in real time is usually not required (Neirotti et al., 2014). Apart of the relevance of ICTs to envision smart cities, a significant body of literature has argued extensively about This article is part of the Topical Collection on Smart Cities Smart governance models for future cities.

Jaeseung Song Luis Sánchez M. Bauer

30 Juni 2021

For the last decade the Smart City concept has been under development, fostered by the growing urbanization of the world’s population and the need to handle the challenges that such a scenario raises. During this time many Smart City projects have been executed–some as proof-of-concept, but a growing number resulting in permanent, production-level deployments, improving the operation of the city and the quality of life of its citizens. Thus, Smart Cities are still a highly relevant paradigm which needs further development before it reaches its full potential and provides robust and resilient solutions. In this paper, the focus is set on the Internet of Things (IoT) as an enabling technology for the Smart City. In this sense, the paper reviews the current landscape of IoT-enabled Smart Cities, surveying relevant experiences and city initiatives that have embedded IoT within their city services and how they have generated an impact. The paper discusses the key technologies that have been developed and how they are contributing to the realization of the Smart City. Moreover, it presents some challenges that remain open ahead of us and which are the initiatives and technologies that are under development to tackle them.

Z. Allam B. Feizizadeh Ayyoob Sharifi + 1 lainnya

25 Juni 2021

The concept of smart cities has gained significant momentum in science and policy circles over the past decade. This study aims to provide an overview of the structure and trends in the literature on smart cities. Bibliometric analysis and science mapping techniques using VOSviewer and CiteSpace are used to identify the thematic focus of over 5000 articles indexed in the Web of Science since 1991. In addition to providing insights into the thematic evolution of the field, the three-decade study period is divided into two sub-periods (1991–2015 and 2016–2021). While splitting the dataset into more sub-periods would have been desirable, we decided to only examine two sub-periods as only very few papers have been published until 2010. The annual number of publications has progressively increased since then, with a surge in the annual number of publications observable from 2015 onwards. The thematic analysis showed that the intellectual base of the field has been very limited during the first period, but has expanded significantly since 2015. Over time, some thematic evolutions, such as further attention to linkages to climate change and resilience, and more emphasis on security and privacy issues, have been made. The thematic analysis shows that existing research on smart cities is dominated by either conceptual issues or underlying technical aspects. It is, therefore, essential to do more research on the implementation of smart cities and actual and/or potential contributions of smart cities to solving societal issues. In addition to elaborating on thematic focus, the study also highlights major authors, journals, references, countries, and institutions that have contributed to the development of the smart cities literature.

S. Hashim Mohsen Marjani A. Sali + 3 lainnya

2021

The notion of smart cities has remained under evolution as its global implementations are challenged by numerous technological, economic, and governmental obstacles. Moreover, the synergy of the Internet of Things (IoT) and big data technologies could result in promising horizons in terms of smart city development which has not been explored yet. Thus, the current research aims to address the essence of smart cities. To this end, first, the concept of smart cities is briefly overviewed; then, their properties and specifications as well as generic architecture, compositions, and real-world implementations are addressed. Furthermore, possible challenges and opportunities in the field of smart cities are described. Numerous issues and challenges such as analytics and using big data in smart cities introduced in this study offers an enhancement in developing applications of the above-mentioned technologies. Hence, this study paves the way for future research on the issues and challenges of big data applications in smart cities.

Sandeep Mishra Aditya Pal Hari Mohan Rai + 2 lainnya

31 Agustus 2023

The Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly becoming one of the most talked-about and essential components of any digitization process. The IoT is comprised of several key necessary components, the most important of which are sensors, communication (the internet), and user interfaces for data processing. IoTs are currently finding applications in virtually every industry, including healthcare, where they are known as the internet of medical things (IoMT), industry, where they are known as the industrial internet of things (IIoT), and interconnection between people, where they are known as the internet of everything (IoE). The challenge is to leverage the Internet of Things (IoT), technology, and data to create smarter and more sustainable cities that enhance the quality of life for residents. Therefore, in this article; we have demonstrated the use of the IoT in a variety of applications for smart communities. These applications include smart transportation, smart water management, smart garbage management, smart house illumination, smart parking, smart infrastructure, etc. This research also includes an explanation of the flow process of implementing the IoT in different applications of smart communities, as well as their characteristics and particular applications. Along with their flow illustration, the stages involved in the implementation of smart city applications and the components they consist of are also displayed here. We have also taken into consideration the instances of particular cases and their implementation utilizing IoT. Some of these cases include the automated water collection methods of smart water management systems as well as the condition of the water. Based on the findings of the research, we came to the conclusion that IoT devices play an essential role in each and every one of the smart city project implementations.