Towards a Generic Framework for Smart Cities

Cities are formidable drivers of economic, social and cultural development but face a rising multitude of challenges: urban sprawl, transportation problems and climate change to mention but a few. Evolving concepts such as smart cities, sustainable communities and low carbon cities have been employed to formulate initiatives to tackle these challenges. Smart cities appear to address efficiency in reducing time, cost, and energy in delivering services-smart transportation, intelligent buildings, and green infrastructure with a view to reaching low carbon city development and eventually sustainability. This article attempts to construct a general framework for smart cities. First, the overall smart city system is depicted. Second, the dynamics of urban sector drivers in smart and low carbon cities are elucidated. Third, the performance of smart cities is measured in relation to low carbon development. By applying the smart city framework to the cities of Vienna, London, New York and Tokyo, the model proved robust and flexible. The investigation is concluded with policies to realign city plan and development policies

Urban Green Space Development Strategy–Reconverting Gas Station to Public Parks in the City of Surabaya, Indonesia

Urban Green Space Development has become a challenging task for city governments especially in Indonesia, due to high prices of land around urban centers. On the other hand, there are inconsistencies between land use and land allocation within the city planning. In Surabaya City, quite a lot of gas stations were built on areas which are originally intended for green open spaces. Surabaya City Municipality is strongly committed to reconvert Gas Station Areas to green open spaces as determined in the plan. Innovative strategies have enabled the city government to reconvert 13 gas stations to public parks. This paper analyzes the implementation process of the Urban Green Space Reconversion Policy, describing the historical details of the issues, the  taking over of land from gas station owners, and the park development and campaigning. Discussion also includes the most influential factors in this success story

Dataset normalization for low carbon cities in a multi-criteria evaluation model

Data in this article are related to a paper entitled “Towards a Generic Multi-criteria Evaluation Model for Low Carbon Cities”. This paper sets out a framework for data normalization in a multi-criteria evaluation model that was tested and validated in 15 cities. Data deals with measurable indicators such as GDP per capita, CO2 emissions per capita and public buses per capita. In addition to published papers, selected World Bank and Siemens reports were useful to operationalize and identify low carbon cities. Keywords: Data normalization, Low carbon city, Scoring, Multi-criteria evaluation, Carbon emission

A Strategy-Based Model for Low Carbon Cities

Low carbon cities are increasingly forming a distinct strand of sustainability literature. Models have been developed to measure the performance of low carbon cities. The purpose of this paper is to formulate a strategy-based model to evaluate current performance and predict future conditions of low carbon cities. It examines the dynamic interrelationships between key performance indicators (KPIs), induces changes to city plan targets, and then instantly predicts the outcome of these changes. Designed to be generic and flexible, the proposed model shows how low carbon targets could be used to guide the transformation of low carbon cities under four strategies: (1) Passive intervention, (2) problem solving, (3) trend modifying, and (4) opportunity seeking. Further, the model has been applied to 17 cities and then tested on five cities: London, New York, Barcelona, Dubai, and Istanbul. The paper concludes with policy implications to realign city plans and support low carbon innovation

Public acceptance and the environmental impact of electric bus services

The implementation of electric vehicle policies in Indonesia is still at an early stage to achieve the government’s target in 2025. However, the government of Jakarta is planning to operate electric buses for TransJakarta’s bus services network to reduce CO2 emissions and, at the same time, increase convenience. This research explores commuters’ preferences for using electric buses with survey data from 1,029 commuters, employing a stated choice experiment and Mixed Logit Model (MXL) to calculate CO2 emissions reduction. The results show that buses and trains are the two most dominant preferences chosen by the respondents due to several factors, including cheapest travel costs, shortest travel times, and lowest emissions levels. Furthermore, the results also imply that electric buses are preferable to non-electric buses and that the implementation of electric buses will potentially reduce up to 96,332,825 kg of CO2 annually

Empowering digital creative ecosystem using problem structuring method and a service science perspective: a case study in Cimahi and Bandung, Indonesia

The digital creative economy in Indonesia has the potential to grow rapidly due to its large and skilled population. Although a goal was set in 2016 to make Indonesia the largest digital economy in ASEAN by 2020, the complexity of stakeholder interactions has become a major obstacle. Fostering a healthy business ecosystem and collaboration among stakeholders has been difficult to achieve due to a lack of funding, talent, and trust. This paper developed “should-be” and “as-is” models of feasible action plans to enhance value co-creation interactions among stakeholders. We investigated how stakeholders perceive their roles and interactions to construct an “as-is” model using a soft operational research method, namely strategic options development and analysis (SODA). Next, we developed a “should-be” model from a service science perspective. By comparing the two models, we derived action plans and recommendations to guide stakeholders in creating digital creative ecosystems (DCEs) in Indonesia. The action plans have been implemented by the government to improve the current strategies and validate our approach