Decision intelligence in street lighting management

The European Union has been making efforts to increase energy efficiency within its member states, in line with most of the industrialized countries. In these efforts, the energy consumed by public lighting networks is a key target as it represents approximately 50% of the electricity consumption of European cities. In this paper we propose an approach for the autonomous management of public lighting networks in which each luminary is managed individually and that takes into account both their individual characteristics as well as ambient data. The approach is compared against a traditional management scheme, leading to a reduction in energy consumption of 28%.This work is co-funded by Fundos Europeus Estruturais e de Investimento (FEEI) through Programa Operacional Regional Norte, in the scope of project NORTE01-0145-FEDER-023577 and by national funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia through projects UID/CEC/00319/2019 and UIDB/04728/2020

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

Greening the Smartness of Cities and Communities

The topic of smart cities has come to the fore at a time when technological innovation in the cities, owing to the ever increasing use of ICT infrastructures and services, especially the Internet, is spreading widely. The digital city seems to have taken the upper hand over the real one, and cities are joining the smart revolution aiming to become smart cities. The risk is that the most concrete meanings of the smart revolution will be lost, giving too much weight to technologies. This chapter addresses this issue by highlighting the true meanings of the smart city approach on urban planning and the necessary and useful synergy with the green aspects most linked to the physical environment of the city

When inclusion means smart city: Urban planning against poverty

A majority of human beings live in cities, half of them in cities of less than 500.000 inhabitants, and around I billion of dwellers live today in slums (meaning 25% of urban residents in the global South). Having these numbers in mind, the main question for urban planners and decision makers is: why our forecasts of a sustainable urban development have not been reached, at least not for all people, what may we change in order to create and enhance “smart cities” offering access to infrastructures, services and environment of quality to all, without any exception? Based on a conceptual approach of urban planning and on case studies in Africa and Latin America, we shall focus on 3 dimensions of a renewed urban planning: base the planning on a diagnosis of human and material reality specific to each city – involve the planning in a critical perspective of financial and human available resources – implement innovative technologies in a participatory approach including inhabitants and all urban stakeholders

A Unified Definition of a Smart City

Part 1: Smart Governance, Government and CitiesInternational audienceThere is some consensus among researchers that the first urban civilization labeled a ‘city’ was Sumer in the period 3,500–3,000 BC. The meaning of the word, however, has evolved with the advancement of technology. Adjectives such as digital, intelligent, and smart have been prefixed to ‘city’, to reflect the evolution. In this study, we pose the question: What makes a ‘Smart City’, as opposed to a traditional one? We review and synthesize multiple scientific studies and definitions, and present a unified definition of Smart City—a complex concept. We present the definition as an ontology which encapsulates the combinatorial complexity of the concept. It systematically and systemically synthesizes, and looks beyond, the various paths by which theory and practice contribute to the development and understanding of a smart city. The definition can be used to articulate the components of a Smart City using structured natural English. It serves as a multi-disciplinary lens to study the topic drawing upon concepts from Urban Design, Information Technology, Public Policy, and the Social Sciences. It can be used to systematically map the state-of-the-research and the state-of-the-practice on Smart Cities, discover the gaps in each and between the two, and formulate a strategy to bridge the gaps