Environmentally sustainable smart cities and their converging AI, IoT, and big data technologies and solutions: an integrated approach to an extensive literature review

J. Corchado Tan Yigitcanlar Rashid Mehmood

2 Agustus 2021

Smart cities and artificial intelligence (AI) are among the most popular discourses in urban policy circles. Most attempts at using AI to improve efficiencies in cities have nevertheless either struggled or failed to accomplish the smart city transformation. This is mainly due to short-sighted, technologically determined and reductionist AI approaches being applied to complex urbanization problems. Besides this, as smart cities are underpinned by our ability to engage with our environments, analyze them, and make efficient, sustainable and equitable decisions, the need for a green AI approach is intensified. This perspective paper, reflecting authors’ opinions and interpretations, concentrates on the “green AI” concept as an enabler of the smart city transformation, as it offers the opportunity to move away from purely technocentric efficiency solutions towards efficient, sustainable and equitable solutions capable of realizing the desired urban futures. The aim of this perspective paper is two-fold: first, to highlight the fundamental shortfalls in mainstream AI system conceptualization and practice, and second, to advocate the need for a consolidated AI approach—i.e., green AI—to further support smart city transformation. The methodological approach includes a thorough appraisal of the current AI and smart city literatures, practices, developments, trends and applications. The paper informs authorities and planners on the importance of the adoption and deployment of AI systems that address efficiency, sustainability and equity issues in cities.

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.

Mohammad Khalid Imam Rahmani Shahid Husain Mohammed Arshad Khan + 1 lainnya

2022

In the data-driven world, data is created in huge volume and then analyzed by several organizations to get benefit from them. Smart city is one of the examples to use big data to offer improved services for its resident and tourist. However, some countries face certain obstacles to analyze the big data integration for sustainability in smart city development. Therefore, the purpose of this research paper is to identify and analyze the significant barriers related to sustainable smart city development. To accomplish this objective, fourteen barriers of big data analytics are selected through the combined approach of literature review and expert input. After that, these barriers are evaluated using the best worst method for obtaining deeper insights. The result of this study reveals that the most significant barrier is ‘lack of technologies for BDA’, ‘lack of BDA framework’, ‘nature of big data’, and ‘low availability of analytics platforms for big data’. These barriers need to address on priority to develop a sustainable smart city. This study is helpful to the urban planner, government, and consultancy agencies to decide on the adoption of BDA for sustainable smart city development. Further, they can also optimize their resources in the best possible manner to achieve the sustainable development of the existing smart cities.

Fan Zeng Huajun Tang Chuang-Chuang Pang

24 Maret 2024

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a critical component of smart cities and a key contributor to the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (UNSDG) 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities. The IoT is an infrastructure that enables devices to communicate with each other over the Internet, providing critical components for smart cities, such as data collection, generation, processing, analysis, and application handling. IoT-based applications can promote sustainable urban development. Many studies demonstrate how the IoT can improve smart cities’ sustainable development. This systematic literature review provides valuable insights into the utilization of the IoT in the context of smart cities, with a particular focus on its implications for sustainable urban development. Based on an analysis of 73 publications, we discuss the role of IoT in the sustainable development of smart cities, focusing on smart communities, smart transportation, disaster management, privacy and security, and emerging applications. In each domain, we have detailed the attributes of IoT sensors. In addition, we have examined various communication technologies and protocols suitable for transmitting sensor-generated data. We have also presented the methods for analyzing and integrating these data within the IoT application layer. Finally, we identify research gaps in the literature, highlighting areas that require further investigation.

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.