Smart Cities, Volume 7, Issue 6 (December 2024) – 19 articles

This paper presents COWIN^E (Community Twin Ecosystem), an ecosystem that harnesses Digital Twin (DT) to elevate and transform community resilience strategies. COWIN^E aims to enhance the disaster resilience of communities by fostering collaborative participation in the use of its DT among the decision-makers, the general public, and other involved stakeholders. COWIN^E leverages Cities:Skylines as its base simulation engine integrated with real-world data for community DT development. It is capable of capturing the dynamic, intricate, and interconnected structures of communities to provide actionable insights into disaster resilience planning. Through demonstrative, simulation-based case studies on Brevard County, Florida, the paper illustrates COWIN^E’s collaborative use with the involved parties in managing tornado scenarios. This study demonstrates how COWIN^E supports the identification of vulnerable areas, the execution of adaptive strategies, and the efficient allocation of resources before, during, and after a disaster. This paper further explores potential research directions using COWIN^E. The findings show COWIN^E’s potential to be utilized as a collaborative tool for community disaster resilience management. Full article

This paper presents a model for transactive energy management within microgrids (MGs) that include smart homes and buildings. The model focuses on peer-to-peer (P2P) transactive energy management among these homes, establishing a collaborative use of a cloud energy storage system (CESS) to reduce daily energy costs for both smart homes and MGs. This research assesses how smart homes and buildings can effectively utilize CESS while implementing P2P transactive energy management. Additionally, it explores the potential of a solar rooftop parking lot facility that offers charging and discharging services for plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) within the MG. Controllable and non-controllable appliances, along with air conditioning (AC) systems, are managed by a home energy management (HEM) system to optimize energy interactions within daily scheduling. A linear mathematical framework is developed across three scenarios and solved using General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS 24.1.2) software for optimization. The developed model investigates the operational impacts and optimization opportunities of CESS within smart homes and MGs. It also develops a transactive energy framework in a P2P energy trading market embedded with CESS and analyzes the cost-effectiveness and arbitrage driven by CESS integration. The results of the comparative analysis reveal that integrating CESS within the P2P transactive framework not only opens up further technical opportunities but also significantly reduces MG energy costs from $55.01 to $48.64, achieving an 11.57% improvement. Results are further discussed. Full article

This paper presents a comprehensive review of the transformative impacts of 3D printing technology on smart cities. As cities face rapid urbanization, resource shortages, and environmental degradation, innovative solutions such as additive manufacturing (AM) offer potential pathways for sustainable urban development. By synthesizing 66 publications from 2015 to 2024, the study examines how 3D printing improves urban infrastructure, enhances sustainability, and fosters community engagement in city planning. Key benefits of 3D printing include reducing construction time and material waste, lowering costs, and enabling the creation of scalable, affordable housing solutions. The paper also addresses emerging areas such as the integration of 3D printing with digital twins (DTs), machine learning (ML), and AI to optimize urban infrastructure and predictive maintenance. It highlights the use of smart materials and soft robotics for structural health monitoring (SHM) and repairs. Despite the promising advancements, challenges remain in terms of cost, scalability, and the need for interdisciplinary collaboration among engineers, designers, urban planners, and policymakers. The findings suggest a roadmap for future research and practical applications of 3D printing in smart cities, contributing to the ongoing discourse on sustainable and technologically advanced urban development. Full article

As cities expand and the global push for zero pollution intensifies, sustainable last-mile delivery (LMD) systems are essential to minimizing environmental and health impacts. This study addresses the need for more sustainable LMD by examining the integration of wind conditions into drone-assisted deliveries, focusing on their effects on air and noise pollution in urban areas. We extend the flying sidekick traveling salesman problem (FSTSP) by incorporating meteorological factors, specifically wind, to assess drone delivery efficiency in varying conditions. Our results show that while drones significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions compared to traditional delivery vehicles, their contribution to noise pollution remains a concern. This research highlights the environmental advantages of using drones, particularly in reducing CO₂ emissions, while also emphasizing the need for further investigation into mitigating their noise impact. By evaluating the trade-offs between air and noise pollution, this study provides insights into developing more sustainable, health-conscious delivery models that contribute to smart city initiatives. The findings inform policy, urban planning, and logistics strategies aimed at achieving zero pollution goals and improving urban livability. Full article

In a real-world implementation, machine learning models frequently experience concept drift when forecasting the electricity load. This is due to seasonal changes influencing the scale, mean, and median values found in the input data, changing their distribution. Several methods have been proposed to solve this, such as implementing automated model retraining, feature engineering, and ensemble learning. The biggest drawback, however, is that they are too complex for simple implementation in existing projects. Since the drifted data follow the same pattern as the training dataset in terms of having different scale, mean, and median values, radian scaling was proposed as a new way to scale without relying on these values. It works by converting the difference between the two sequential values into a radian for the model to compute, removing the bounding, and allowing the model to forecast beyond the training dataset scale. In the experiment, not only does the constrained gated recurrent unit model with radian scaling have shorter average training epochs, but it also lowers the average root mean square error from 158.63 to 43.375, outperforming the best existing normalization method by 72.657%. Full article

The application of black-box models, namely ensemble and deep learning, has significantly advanced the effectiveness of solar power generation forecasting. However, these models lack explainability, which hinders comprehensive investigations into environmental influences. To address this limitation, we employ explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) techniques to enhance the interpretability of these black-box models, while ensuring their predictive accuracy. We carefully selected 10 prominent black-box models and deployed them using real solar power datasets. Within the field of artificial intelligence, it is crucial to adhere to standardized usage procedures to guarantee unbiased performance evaluations. Consequently, our investigation identifies LightGBM as the model that requires explanation. In a practical engineering context, we utilize XAI methods to extract understandable insights from the selected model, shedding light on the varying degrees of impact exerted by diverse environmental factors on solar power generation. This approach facilitates a nuanced analysis of the influence of the environment. Our findings underscore the significance of “Distance from the Noon” as the primary factor influencing solar power generation, which exhibits a clear interaction with “Sky Cover.” By leveraging the outcomes of our analyses, we propose optimal locations for solar power stations, thereby offering a tangible pathway for the practical. Full article

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 11 aims to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. Smart cities have been studied extensively as an overarching framework to address the needs of increasing urbanisation and the targets of SDG 11. Digital twins and artificial intelligence are foundational technologies that enable the rapid prototyping, development and deployment of systems and solutions within this overarching framework of smart cities. In this paper, we present a novel AI approach for hypervector approximation of complex manifolds in high-dimensional datasets and data streams such as those encountered in smart city settings. This approach is based on hypervectors, few-shot learning and a learning rule based on single-vector operation that collectively maintain low computational complexity. Starting with high-level clusters generated by the K-means algorithm, the approach interrogates these clusters with the Hyperseed algorithm that approximates the complex manifold into fine-grained local variations that can be tracked for anomalies and temporal changes. The approach is empirically evaluated in the smart city setting of a multi-campus tertiary education institution where diverse sensors, buildings and people movement data streams are collected, analysed and processed for insights and decisions. Full article

While cities on a global scale embrace smartness as a roadmap for efficient urban governance, disparities persist in the domain of digital accessibility, literacy, and skills, with manifestations of digital exclusion, ageism, and ableism prevalent in most digital urban experiences. Despite their commitment to bridging the digital divide, governments lack comprehensive frameworks to inform policymaking and action for inclusion in smart cities. This review paper aims to deepen the understanding of the multifaceted challenges confronting the governance of inclusion in smart cities. Drawing from a review of research encompassing digital inclusion, digital transitions, smart cities, and urban governance, we discuss who is included and excluded in the governance of smart cities; what are the necessary conditions to be met for smart cities to be considered inclusive; and how can smart city governance deliver public value and equal benefits for all. As a novel contribution, this paper outlines a reflective framework to inform citizen inclusion in the governance of smart cities. This framework is meant to act as a starting point in the design of inclusive digital urban policies, and can also be employed to assess the directions taken to date in public organizations towards more inclusive urban practices. Full article

The transport sector worldwide relies heavily on oil products, and private cars account for the largest share of passenger mobility in several countries. Public transport could represent an interesting alternative under many perspectives, including a decrease in traffic, pollutants, and climate emissions. However, for public transport to succeed, it should be attractive for final users, representing a viable alternative to private mobility. In this work, we analyse the spatial distribution of public transport service provision within two metropolitan cities, considering the three key dimensions of mobility, competitiveness, and accessibility of public transport. The results show that private car performs better than public transport in all scopes considered, and that performance indicators are highly variable among city areas, indicating inequalities in social and environmental sustainability in urban systems. The outcomes of the analysis provide interesting insights for policy makers and researchers that deal with similar topics, and can also be extended to other cities and countries. Full article

The increasing use of mobile networks is an opportunity to collect and model users’ movement data for extracting knowledge about life and health while considering privacy leakage risk. This study aims to approximate the lifestyles of urban residents, employing statistical information derived from their movements among various Points of Interest (PoI). Our investigations comprehend a multidimensional analysis of key urban factors to provide insights into the population’s daily routines, preferences, and characteristics. To this end, we developed a framework called LEAF that models lifestyles by interpreting anonymized cell phone mobility data and integrating it with information from other sources, such as geographical layers of land use and sets of PoI. LEAF presents the information in a vector space model capable of responding to spatial queries about lifestyle. We also developed a consolidated lifestyle pattern framework to systematically identify and analyze the dominant activity patterns in different urban areas. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed framework, we tested it on movement data from individuals in a medium-sized city and compared the results with information collected through surveys. The RMSE of $5.167$ between the proposed framework’s results and survey-based data indicates that the framework provides a reliable estimation of lifestyle patterns across diverse urban areas. Additionally, summarized patterns of criteria ordering were created, offering a concise and intuitive representation of lifestyles. The analysis revealed high consistency between the two methods in the derived patterns, underscoring the framework’s robustness and accuracy in modeling urban lifestyle dynamics. Full article

The automotive industry has evolved enormously in recent years, marked by the proliferation of smart vehicles furnished with avant-garde technologies. These intelligent automobiles leverage cutting-edge innovations to deliver enhanced connectivity, automation, and convenience to drivers and passengers. Despite the myriad benefits of smart vehicles, their integration of digital systems has raised concerns regarding cybersecurity vulnerabilities. The primary components of smart cars within smart vehicles encompass in-vehicle communication and intricate computation, in addition to conventional control circuitry. In-vehicle communication is facilitated through a controller area network (CAN), whereby electronic control units communicate via message transmission across the CAN-bus, omitting explicit destination specifications. This broadcasting and non-delineating nature of CAN makes it susceptible to cyber attacks and intrusions, posing high-security risks to the passengers, ultimately prompting the requirement of an intrusion detection system (IDS) accepted for a wide range of cyber-attacks in CAN. To this end, this paper proposed a novel machine learning (ML)-based scheme employing a Pythagorean distance-based algorithm for IDS. This paper employs six real-time collected CAN datasets while studying several cyber attacks to simulate the IDS. The resilience of the proposed scheme is evaluated while comparing the results with the existing ML-based IDS schemes. The simulation results showed that the proposed scheme outperformed the existing studies and achieved 99.92% accuracy and 0.999 F1-score. The precision of the proposed scheme is 99.9%, while the area under the curve (AUC) is 0.9997. Additionally, the computational complexity of the proposed scheme is very low compared to the existing schemes, making it more suitable for the fast decision-making required for smart vehicles. Full article

Small wind turbines placed at city locations are affected by variable-speed winds that frequently change direction. Architectural constructions, buildings of different heights and abrupt orography of Cities make the winds that occur at City locations more variable than in flat lands or at sea. However, the performance of Small-wind turbines under this type of variable wind has not been deeply studied in the specialised literature. Therefore, this article analyses the behaviour of small wind turbines under variable and gusty winds of cities, also considering three types of power electronics conversion configurations: the generally used Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) configuration, the simple only-rectifier configuration and an intermediate configuration in terms of complexity called pseudo-MPPT. This general-purpose analysis is applied to a specific type of wind turbine, i.e., the Ayanz wind turbine with screw blades, which presents adequate characteristics for city locations such as; safety, reduced visual and acoustic impacts and bird casualties avoidance. Thus, a wide simulation and experimental tests-based analysis are carried out, identifying the main factors affecting the maximisation of energy production of small wind turbines in general and the Ayanz turbine in particular. It is concluded that the mechanical inertia of the wind turbine, often not even considered in the energy production analysis, is a key factor that can produce decrements of up to 25% in energy production. Then, it was also found that electric factors related to the power electronics conversion system can strongly influence energy production. Thus, it is found that an adequate design of a simple pseudo-MPPT power conversion system could extract even 5% more energy than more complex MPPT configurations, especially in quickly varying winds of cities. Full article

Reducing carbon emissions is a critical issue for the near future as climate change is an imminent reality. To reduce our carbon footprint, society must change its habits and behaviours to optimise energy consumption, and the current progress in embedded systems and artificial intelligence has the potential to make this easier. The smart building concept and intelligent energy management are key points to increase the use of renewable sources of energy as opposed to fossil fuels. In addition, cyber-physical systems (CPSs) provide an abstraction of the management of services that allows the integration of both virtual and physical systems in a seamless control architecture. In this paper, we propose to use multiagent reinforcement learning (MARL) to model the CPS services control plane in a smart house, with the purpose of minimising, by shifting or shutdown services, the use of non-renewable energy (fuel generator) by exploiting solar production and batteries. Furthermore, our proposal dynamically adapts its behaviour in real time according to current and historic energy production, thus being able to handle occasional changes in energy production due to meteorological phenomena or unexpected energy consumption. In order to evaluate our proposal, we have developed an open-source smart building energy simulator and deployed our use case. Finally, several simulations with different configurations are evaluated to verify the performance. The simulation results show that the reinforcement learning solution outperformed the priority-based and the heuristic-based solutions in both power consumption and adaptability in all configurations. Full article

Urbanization growth poses various challenges, such as congestion, pollution, and resource consumption, prompting city planners and governments to adopt smart systems to manage these issues more efficiently. Despite widespread adoption, there is no consensus on the defining attributes of smart cities, particularly regarding their role in urban sustainability and contemporary urbanism. This paper provides a literature review to understand the implications of smart city initiatives for sustainable urban planning, focusing on practices in Singapore, Helsinki, Barcelona, and Medellin. Based on 71 publications surveyed from Scopus and Web of Science, this paper evaluates smart, sustainable initiatives undertaken in these four cities across six smart domains: mobility, governance, environment, people, living, and economy. This review shows that most studies focus on Barcelona and Singapore, particularly in the domains of smart environment and governance. Despite differing urban contexts, the notion of “smart” is closely tied to using information and communication technologies to drive urban operations. This analysis identifies a lack of assessment studies on the benefits of smart cities in terms of urban sustainability and a lack of holistic approaches to address the complex challenges cities face in achieving sustainable development. Full article

Buildings and their supporting infrastructure are vulnerable to both natural and human-made disasters, which pose significant risks to the safety of the occupants. Evacuation models are essential tools for assessing these risks and for ensuring the safety of individuals during emergencies. The primary objective of an evacuation model is to realistically simulate the process by which a large group of people can reach available exits efficiently. This paper introduces an agent-based evacuation model that represents the environment as a rectangular grid, where individuals, obstacles, and exits interact dynamically. The model employs only five rules to simulate evacuation dynamics while also accounting for complex factors such as movement and stagnation. Different from many evacuation models, this approach includes rules that account for common behaviors exhibited in stressful evacuation situations such as accidents, hysteria, and disorientation. By incorporating these behavioral conditions, the model more accurately reflects the real-life reactions of individuals during evacuation, leading to more realistic and applicable results. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed model, comprehensive experiments and case studies are conducted in diverse urban settings. The results of these experiments demonstrate that the model offers valuable insights into the evacuation process and provides a more precise assessment of its behavior in emergency scenarios. Full article

The rapid advancement and adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) necessitate innovative solutions to address integration challenges in modern charging infrastructure. Dynamic wireless charging (DWC) is an innovative solution for powering electric vehicles (EVs) using multiple magnetic transmitters installed beneath the road and a receiver located on the underside of the EV. Dynamic charging offers a solution to the issue of range anxiety by allowing EVs to charge while in motion, thereby reducing the need for frequent stops. This manuscript reviews several pivotal areas critical to the future of EV DWC technology such as authentication techniques, blockchain applications, driver identification systems, economic aspects, and emerging communication technologies. Ensuring secure access to this charging infrastructure requires fast, lightweight authentication systems. Similarly, blockchain technology plays a critical role in enhancing the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) architecture by decentralizing and securing vehicular networks, thus improving privacy, security, and efficiency. Driver identification systems, crucial for EV safety and comfort, are analyzed. Additionally, the economic feasibility and impact of DWC are evaluated, providing essential insights into its potential effects on the EV ecosystem. The paper also emphasizes the need for quick and lightweight authentication systems to ensure secure access to DWC infrastructure and discusses how blockchain technology enhances the efficiency, security, and privacy of IoV networks. The importance of driver identification systems for comfort and safety is evaluated, and an economic study confirms the viability and potential benefits of DWC for the EV ecosystem. Full article

Digital-twin platforms are increasingly adopted in energy infrastructure management for smart grids. Novel opportunities arise from emerging artificial intelligence technologies to increase user trust by enhancing predictive and prescriptive analytics capabilities and by improving user interaction paradigms. This paper presents a novel data-driven and knowledge-based energy digital-twin framework and architecture. Data integration and mining based on machine learning are integrated into a knowledge graph annotating asset status data, prediction outcomes, and background domain knowledge in order to support a retrieval-augmented generation approach, which enhances a conversational virtual assistant based on a large language model to provide user decision support in asset management and maintenance. Components of the proposed architecture have been mapped to commercial-off-the-shelf tools to implement a prototype framework, exploited in a case study on the management of a section of the high-voltage energy infrastructure in central Italy. Full article

Employing vehicle telematics data, this study investigates the transport environment across urban and major road networks during a two-week period encompassing the Easter holidays, considered as a case study. The analysis spans four distinct years: 2016, 2018, 2021, and 2022. Geospatial and Temporal Mapping captured the dependencies of vehicle speed, acceleration, vehicle-specific power (VSP), and emission factors (EFs) for air pollutants (CO₂ and NO_x) on the studied calendar period. The results showed that during the Easter holiday, the median vehicle speeds exceeded annual averages by roughly 5%, indicating a clear deviation from regular traffic patterns. This deviation was particularly stark during the 2021 lockdown, with a significant drop in vehicle presence, leading to less congestion and thus higher speeds and vehicle acceleration. The emissions analyses revealed that individual cars emit higher levels of CO₂ and NO_x during Easter. Specifically, the median values of CO₂ EF and NO_x EF were 9% and 11% higher than the annual norm. When combined with road occupancy data, the results demonstrate that the Easter holidays in 2022 had a variable impact on NO_x and CO₂ emissions, with significant reductions on major roads during weekday rush hours (15–25%) but slight increases on urban roads during weekend periods. Full article

With the rapid development of electric vehicles, the infrastructure for charging stations is also expanding quickly, and the failure rate of charging piles is increasing. To address the effective operation and maintenance of charging stations, a method based on the XGBoost algorithm for electric vehicle DC charging stations is proposed. An operation and maintenance system is constructed based on state analysis, considering the operational status of the charging stations and users’ charging habits. Factors such as driving and charging habits, road traffic, and charging station equipment are taken into account. The training sample data are established using historical data, online monitoring data, and external environmental data, and the charging station status evaluation model is trained using the XGBoost algorithm. Based on the condition assessment results, a risk assessment model is established in combination with fault parameters. Risk tracking of the charging stations is conducted using the energy not charged (ENC), evaluating the risk level of each station and determining the operation and maintenance order. The optimal operation and maintenance model for DC charging stations, aimed at achieving both economic and reliability goals, is constructed to determine the operation and maintenance schedule for each station. The results of the case study demonstrate that the state evaluation and operation and maintenance strategy can significantly improve the reliability of the system and the overall benefits of operation and maintenance while meeting the required standards. Full article