A mobile application to enhance mobility of people with permanent or temporary mobility disability : a case study in Portugal

This paper presents a mobile application developed in conjunction with the City Hall from Viana do Castelo, a city in the north of Portugal. This application targets people with permanent or temporary reduced mobility and intends to show them information about taxi points, parking spaces and reference points in the city with the possibility to navigate to them using an optimized algorithm, based on routes defined for each segment (deaf people, visually impaired people, etc.). The Dijkstra?s algorithm was used to implement the shortestPath given an origin, destination and segment. In this paper we present implementation details as well as final layouts of the prototype. At the current moment, the application is ended and will soon enter in usability tests with the users.5311-8814-F0ED | Sara Maria da Cruz Maia de Oliveira PaivaN/

Collaboration or competition: The impact of incentive types on urban cycling

Bicycling is an important mode of transport for cities and many cities are interested in promoting its uptake by a larger portion of the population. Several cycling mobile applications primarily rely on competition as a motivation strategy for urban cyclists. Yet, collaboration may be equally useful to motivate and engage cyclists. The present research reports on an experiment comparing the impact of collaboration-based and competition-based rewards on users’ enjoyment, satisfaction, engagement with, and intention to cycle. It involved a total of 57 participants in three European cities: Münster (Germany), Castelló (Spain), and Valletta (Malta). Our results show participants from the study reporting higher enjoyment and engagement with cycling in the collaboration condition. However, we did not find a significant impact on the participants’ worldview when it comes to the intentions to start or increase cycling behavior. The results support the use of collaboration-based rewards in the design of game-based applications to promote urban cycling

Electric Vehicles Charging Control based on Future Internet Generic Enablers

In this paper a rationale for the deployment of Future Internet based applications in the field of Electric Vehicles (EVs) smart charging is presented. The focus is on the Connected Device Interface (CDI) Generic Enabler (GE) and the Network Information and Controller (NetIC) GE, which are recognized to have a potential impact on the charging control problem and the configuration of communications networks within reconfigurable clusters of charging points. The CDI GE can be used for capturing the driver feedback in terms of Quality of Experience (QoE) in those situations where the charging power is abruptly limited as a consequence of short term grid needs, like the shedding action asked by the Transmission System Operator to the Distribution System Operator aimed at clearing networks contingencies due to the loss of a transmission line or large wind power fluctuations. The NetIC GE can be used when a master Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) hosts the Load Area Controller, responsible for managing simultaneous charging sessions within a given Load Area (LA); the reconfiguration of distribution grid topology results in shift of EVSEs among LAs, then reallocation of slave EVSEs is needed. Involved actors, equipment, communications and processes are identified through the standardized framework provided by the Smart Grid Architecture Model (SGAM).Comment: To appear in IEEE International Electric Vehicle Conference (IEEE IEVC 2014

A Framework for Integrating Transportation Into Smart Cities

In recent years, economic, environmental, and political forces have quickly given rise to “Smart Cities” -- an array of strategies that can transform transportation in cities. Using a multi-method approach to research and develop a framework for smart cities, this study provides a framework that can be employed to: Understand what a smart city is and how to replicate smart city successes; The role of pilot projects, metrics, and evaluations to test, implement, and replicate strategies; and Understand the role of shared micromobility, big data, and other key issues impacting communities. This research provides recommendations for policy and professional practice as it relates to integrating transportation into smart cities

Crowdsourcing geospatial data for Earth and human observations: a review

The transformation from authoritative to user-generated data landscapes has garnered considerable attention, notably with the proliferation of crowdsourced geospatial data. Facilitated by advancements in digital technology and high-speed communication, this paradigm shift has democratized data collection, obliterating traditional barriers between data producers and users. While previous literature has compartmentalized this subject into distinct platforms and application domains, this review offers a holistic examination of crowdsourced geospatial data. Employing a narrative review approach due to the interdisciplinary nature of the topic, we investigate both human and Earth observations through crowdsourced initiatives. This review categorizes the diverse applications of these data and rigorously examines specific platforms and paradigms pertinent to data collection. Furthermore, it addresses salient challenges, encompassing data quality, inherent biases, and ethical dimensions. We contend that this thorough analysis will serve as an invaluable scholarly resource, encapsulating the current state-of-the-art in crowdsourced geospatial data, and offering strategic directions for future interdisciplinary research and applications across various sectors

Revolutionising the quality of life: the role of real-time sensing in smart cities

To further evolve urban quality of life, this paper explores the potential of crowdsensing and crowdsourcing in the context of smart cities. To aid urban planners and residents in understanding the nuances of day-to-day urban dynamics, we actively pursue the improvement of data visualisation tools that can adapt to changing conditions. An architecture was created and implemented that ensures secure and easy connectivity between various sources, such as a network of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, to merge with crowdsensing data and use them efficiently. In addition, we expanded the scope of our study to include the development of mobile and online applications, emphasizing the integration of autonomous and geo-surveillance. The main findings highlight the importance of sensor data in urban knowledge. Their incorporation via Tepresentational State Transfer (REST) Application Programming Interface (APIs) improves data access and informed decision-making, and dynamic data visualisation provides better insights. The geofencing of the application encourages community participation in urban planning and resource allocation, supporting sustainable urban innovation.This work was supported by FCT-Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the R&D Units Project Scope: UIDB/00319/2020 and the project “Integrated and Innovative Solutions for the well-being of people in complex urban centers” within the Project Scope NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000086. Rui Miranda was supported by grant no. UMINHO/BID/2021/137; Carlos Alves was supported by grant nos. 2022.12629.BD and UMINHO/BID/2021/134; Regina Sousa was supported by grant no. UMINHO/BID/2021/136; António Chaves was supported by grant no. UMINHO/BID/2021/135; Larissa Montenegro was supported by grant no. UMINHO/BID/2022/53

Roadmaps to Utopia: Tales of the Smart City

Notions of the Smart City are pervasive in urban development discourses. Various frameworks for the development of smart cities, often conceptualized as roadmaps, make a number of implicit claims about how smart city projects proceed but the legitimacy of those claims is unclear. This paper begins to address this gap in knowledge. We explore the development of a smart transport application, MotionMap, in the context of a £16M smart city programme taking place in Milton Keynes, UK. We examine how the idealized smart city narrative was locally inflected, and discuss the differences between the narrative and the processes and outcomes observed in Milton Keynes. The research shows that the vision of data-driven efficiency outlined in the roadmaps is not universally compelling, and that different approaches to the sensing and optimization of urban flows have potential for empowering or disempowering different actors. Roadmaps tend to emphasize the importance of delivering quick practical results. However, the benefits observed in Milton Keynes did not come from quick technical fixes but from a smart city narrative that reinforced existing city branding, mobilizing a growing network of actors towards the development of a smart region. Further research is needed to investigate this and other smart city developments, the significance of different smart city narratives, and how power relationships are reinforced and constructed through them

A Collaborative Mobile Crowdsensing System for Smart Cities

Nowadays words like Smart City, Internet of Things, Environmental Awareness surround us with the growing interest of Computer Science and Engineering communities. Services supporting these paradigms are definitely based on large amounts of sensed data, which, once obtained and gathered, need to be analyzed in order to build maps, infer patterns, extract useful information. Everything is done in order to achieve a better quality of life. Traditional sensing techniques, like Wired or Wireless Sensor Network, need an intensive usage of distributed sensors to acquire real-world conditions. We propose SenSquare, a Crowdsensing approach based on smartphones and a central coordination server for time-and-space homogeneous data collecting. SenSquare relies on technologies such as CoAP lightweight protocol, Geofencing and the Military Grid Reference System