Smart, Sustainable, Resilient, and Inclusive Cities: Integrating Performance Assessment Indicators into an Ontology-Oriented Scheme in Support of the Urban Planning Practice

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article focuses on an ontology application and is an interesting example of a multilayer model, where ontology is integrated with indicators, which in turn are intended to support decision making.  The model is theoretical, and its focus is on classes and relationships. Like for any model, the real value is given by a field test. However, the authors did not test their approach and, therefore, they shall need some real urban planners to validate their indicators. We would appreciate a statement about a testing paradigm and procedure. Also, the introduction is very theoretical, since it does not report data about the growth of cities. We suggest introducing some data and mentioning some actual projects. Athens, where authors live, could be an excellent case study of urbanization issues. Generally, this paper is different from other papers on smart cities, which typically report and analyze smart city projects, with a key concern about the robustness of indicators and the link between vision and projects for the smart city.

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

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Good luck!

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for the opportunity to review this article which deals with an important and current topic. The authors offer a comprehensive overview of ontologies for modelling the complex nature of smart cities. 

The abstract and the introduction present the discussed content in a way that is comprehensible even to those unfamiliar with the specific field. 

The discussed literature is relevant, it is only surprising that it does not cover the latest literature and is mostly 10 years old. Sources are abundant and bring important findings (authors like De Nicola, Borgo, Pliatsios, etc.), so it would be important to at least mention their work and compare the results. 

The methodology used is tested and suitable for this type of research. 

The results are discussed and derived from the findings obtained through the study. 

The potential use of the ontological scheme for smart, sustainable, resilient, and inclusive cities is presented in the conclusion. Authors could add eventual limitations of such an approach. 

 

Author Response

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Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Version 2 adds some references about indicators but does not analyze the issue of city growth by field data. We appreciate these additions, but, unfortunately, they do not change the orientations of the paper that still is a pure theoretical ontology exercise. We are familiar with real smart city projects which focus on a selected objective set and invest a significant budget in collecting and processing data, then analyzing data through a set of models. In these projects you often have a preliminary survey on a selected sample of citizens to confirm research variables, then the implementation of data collection tools (fixed and mobile sensors), and, finally, an analysis of the collected data (many and many Terabytes) to identify and test relations and implement simulations. The analysis in these projects rely on various algorithms or models, and, ontology, if any, is developed ex post.  The authors should clarify how their aprioristic model could work, since there is no discussion on the implementation. Hence, we confirm our previous evaluation.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The quality of the paper has been improved. Good luck with your research!

Author Response

Dear reviewer, we cordially thank you for your constructive comments.

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Version 3 adds to page 3-4 a wide discussion on indicators. These additions, even if do not include critical aspects such as pollution and commuting, are important; anyway, they do not change the orientation of the paper that still is a pure theoretical ontology exercise. As the authors point out at page 17, their S2RICO needs application and validation by a real-world case study. We appreciated the challenges described at page 17 and 18, especially ontology maintenance and stakeholder engagement, which, in our experience, are strongly connected in the real world. Conclusions address the implications of a complete successful ontology but do not address the business process of city planning and simulating alternative future scenarios.  So, the ontology analyzes the current conditions.  Given the wider discussion of indicators and the structured remarks about the future implementation, the article offers a contribution to city planning.