Location Intelligence Application in Digital Data Activity Dimensioning in Smart Cities

AbstractCities around the globe are now following the “smart” trend. Smart cities are complex systems of systems that rely on IT to improve their efficiency in terms of economics or sustainability. Many of the activities involved in this context require data to be transferred via communication networks. However, due to the heterogeneity of the applications involved, different nature traffic patterns and number of connected elements (humans or machines), these data traffic flows become extremely complex to model. This work focuses on the application of location intelligence to simplify the modeling of data networks’ activity in such complex systems. It is essential to describe and understand when and where data is generated to effectively design, plan and manage communication networks. We introduce a model based on traffic generation rules and patterns to be applied over Geographic Information Systems data to create “dynamic data activity heat maps”. These heat maps provide a spatial-temporal overview of the behavior of network data in cities as a whole. In addition, we illustrate the model's application to a specific geographic area of relevance