Search Results (15)

This research focuses on the impact of smart city technologies on urban tourism, specifically analyzing Amsterdam, Barcelona, and Vienna, while also considering implications for smart tourism development in Belgrade and other Serbian cities. The aim of the study was to examine how smart city technologies contribute to enhancing the efficiency, digital engagement, and sustainability of urban tourism. A representative sample of 1239 tourists was surveyed, with a balanced gender representation and a predominance of younger respondents, indicating that smart tourism initiatives should cater to tech-savvy travelers. The study employed a questionnaire with 31 statements ranked on a five-point Likert scale, and factor analysis and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) identified three key dimensions: smart efficiency, smart travel, and digital enhancement. These factors highlight how smart technologies optimize urban mobility, enhance travel experiences, and improve tourist engagement. The research confirms the initial hypothesis that integrating smart city technologies enhances urban tourism efficiency and sustainability. Additionally, the study adopts a positivist epistemological approach, emphasizing empirical analysis and statistical validation to derive generalizable findings. The results provide valuable insights for policymakers and stakeholders aiming to develop sustainable urban tourism strategies in Serbian cities. Full article

To address the growing need for advanced tools that enable urban policymakers to conduct comprehensive cost-benefit analyses of traffic management changes, the Urbanite H2020 project has developed innovative artificial intelligence methods. Among them is a robust decision support system that assists policymakers in evaluating and selecting optimal urban mobility planning modifications by combining objective and subjective criteria. Utilising open-source microscopic traffic simulation tools, accurate digital models (or “digital twins”) of four pilot cities—Bilbao, Amsterdam, Helsinki, and Messina—were created, each addressing unique mobility challenges. These challenges include reducing private vehicle access in Bilbao’s city center, analysing the impact of increased bicycle traffic and population growth in Amsterdam, constructing a mobility-enhancing tunnel in Helsinki, and improving public transport connectivity in Messina. The research introduces five key innovations: the application of a consistent open-source simulation platform across diverse urban environments, addressing integration and consistency challenges; the pioneering use of Dexi for advanced decision support in smart cities; the implementation of advanced visualisations; and the integration of the machine learning tool, Orange, with a user-friendly GUI interface. These innovations collectively make complex data analysis accessible to non-technical users. By applying multi-label machine learning techniques, the decision-making process is accelerated by three orders of magnitude, significantly enhancing urban planning efficiency. The Urbanite project’s findings offer valuable insights into both anticipated and unexpected outcomes of mobility interventions, presenting a scalable, open-source AI-based framework for urban decision-makers worldwide. Full article

As urban populations rise globally, cities face increasing challenges in managing urban mobility. This paper addresses the question of identifying which modifications to introduce regarding city mobility by evaluating potential solutions using city-specific, subjective multi-objective criteria. The innovative AI-based recommendation engine assists city planners and policymakers in prioritizing key urban mobility aspects for effective policy proposals. By leveraging multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) and ±1/2 analysis, this engine provides a structured approach to systematically and simultaneously navigate the complexities of urban mobility planning. The proposed approach aims to provide an open-source interoperable prototype for all smart cities to utilize such recommendation systems routinely, fostering efficient, sustainable, and forward-thinking urban mobility strategies. Case studies from four European cities—Helsinki (tunnel traffic), Amsterdam (bicycle traffic for a new city quarter), Messina (adding another bus line), and Bilbao (optimal timing for closing the city center)—highlight the engine’s transformative potential in shaping urban mobility policies. Ultimately, this contributes to more livable and resilient urban environments, based on advanced urban mobility management. Full article

This paper examines business model implementations in three leading European smart cities: London, Amsterdam, and Berlin. Through a systematic literature review and comparative analysis, the study identifies and analyzes various business models employed in these urban contexts. The findings reveal a diverse array of models, including public–private partnerships, build–operate–transfer arrangements, performance-based contracts, community-centric models, innovation hubs, revenue-sharing models, outcome-based financing, and asset monetization strategies. Each city leverages a unique combination of these models to address its specific urban challenges and priorities. The study highlights the role of PPPs in large-scale infrastructure projects, BOT arrangements in transportation solutions, and performance-based contracts in driving efficiency and accountability. It also explores the benefits of community-centric models, innovation hubs, revenue-sharing models, outcome-based financing, and asset monetization strategies in enhancing the sustainability, efficiency, and livability of smart cities. The paper offers valuable insights for policymakers, urban planners, and researchers seeking to advance smart city development worldwide. Full article

Smart tourism destinations have received increasing attention during the last few years. Digital technologies have reshaped the smart city paradigm in terms of both resilience and sustainability, capitalizing cities’ cultural and historical components while providing unique potential for growth in the real estate industry. Real estate, in particular, is considered a main asset to the tourist experience, whether it is in the form of hospitality accommodation facilities, urban landscapes, or cultural heritage hotspots. In addition, the effect of cultural sites and overall destination attractiveness on real estate dynamics (land/housing prices and building activity) is well established. Thus, uncovering how enhanced technological throughputs and synergies, culture-led urban sustainability initiatives and the real estate dimension are directly (or indirectly) associated could support cities to better delineate policies for their promotion as international, sustainable, and resilient tourist destinations. With this perspective, the present study focused on four particular cities’ successful smart initiatives, namely Amsterdam, Barcelona, Seoul, and Stockholm, in an attempt to identify how developers and local authorities will need to transform in order to offer better services to residents and visitors. This work reveals that smart projects alone cannot secure the transition of existing (European) cities into smart and sustainable tourism destinations. In addition, this study also contributes to public policy by demonstrating how challenging it is to be smart without the support and involvement of the local community, highlighting the significance of public awareness. The empirical findings suggest that local authorities are of critical importance when shaping a well-structured and practically effective strategy for the integration of sustainable and technologically advanced smart features. Results are promising, and final reflections provide insights for tourism destinations policymakers, city authorities, and real estate professionals. Full article

“Open Data” efforts are growing, especially in Europe, where open data are seen as a possible ethical driver of innovation. As smart cities continue to develop, it is important to explore how open data will affect the stakeholders of smart public spaces. Making data open and accessible not only has a managerial and technical component but also creates opportunities to shift power dynamics by granting individuals (and entities) access to data they might not otherwise be able to obtain. The scope of those who could access these data is wide, including data-illiterate citizens, burgeoning startups, and foreign militaries. This paper details the process of making data “open” from the MX3D smart bridge in Amsterdam through a “datathon”. The development and outcomes of opening the data and the event itself bring us closer to understanding the complexity of open data access and the extent to which it is useful or empowering for members of the public. While open data research continues to expand, there is still a dearth of studies that qualitatively detail the process and stakeholder concerns for a modern smart city project. This article serves to fill this gap. Full article

The traffic flow forecasting proposed for a series of problems, such as urban road congestion and unreasonable road planning, aims to build a new smart city, improve urban infrastructure, and alleviate road congestion. The problems encountered in traffic flow forecasting are also relatively difficult; the reason is that traffic flow forecasting is uncertain, dynamic, and nonlinear. It is challenging to build a reliable and safe model. Aiming at this complex and nonlinear traffic flow forecasting problem, this paper proposes a solution of an ABC-ELM model optimized by an artificial bee colony algorithm to solve the above problem. It uses the characteristics of the artificial bee colony algorithm to optimize the model so that the model can better and faster find the optimal solution in space. Moreover, it also uses the characteristics of the limit learning machine to quickly deal with this nonlinear specific problem. Experimental results on the Amsterdam road traffic flow dataset show that the traffic flow prediction model proposed in this paper has higher prediction accuracy and is more sensitive to data changes. Full article

Humanity is exceeding planetary boundaries, and it seems that it is unlikely to meet internationally agreed sustainable development goals. Current trends and challenges in the domain of urban sustainability assessment have proven that measuring and interpreting results regarding quality of life requires a complex analysis. The aim of this paper is to investigate the possibility of comparing, in a transparent way, urban quality of life using sustainable development indicators based on the ISO 37120 standard, taking as case studies seven selected cities: Amsterdam, Buenos Aires, Dubai, Gdynia, London, Los Angeles and Zagreb. The hypothesis reads as follows: the ISO 37120 indicators, converted into partial and total utility value, then grouped within sustainable development dimensions (environmental, economic and social) may be used to measure the level of urban quality of life. Research results indicate that there are some significant and interesting differences between the compared cities within the environmental, economic and social pillars. The analysis, conducted with the use of utility method, may facilitate taking the right decisions on urban management, planning and investment. Thus, this tool may be useful for decision makers and help cities and communities of all sizes to become more safe, resilient, prosperous, inclusive, smart and sustainable. Full article

New data-driven technologies in global cities have yielded potential but also have intensified techno-political concerns. Consequently, in recent years, several declarations/manifestos have emerged across the world claiming to protect citizens’ digital rights. In 2018, Barcelona, Amsterdam, and NYC city councils formed the Cities’ Coalition for Digital Rights (CCDR), an international alliance of global People-Centered Smart Cities—currently encompassing 49 cities worldwide—to promote citizens’ digital rights on a global scale. People-centered smart cities programme is the strategic flagship programme by UN-Habitat that explicitly advocates the CCDR as an institutionally innovative and strategic city-network to attain policy experimentation and sustainable urban development. Against this backdrop and being inspired by the popular quote by Hannah Arendt on “the right to have rights”, this article aims to explore what “digital rights” may currently mean within a sample consisting of 13 CCDR global people-centered smart cities: Barcelona, Amsterdam, NYC, Long Beach, Toronto, Porto, London, Vienna, Milan, Los Angeles, Portland, San Antonio, and Glasgow. Particularly, this article examines the (i) understanding and the (ii) prioritisation of digital rights in 13 cities through a semi-structured questionnaire by gathering 13 CCDR city representatives/strategists’ responses. These preliminary findings reveal not only distinct strategies but also common policy patterns. Full article

Collaboration is problematic in the public sector, yet many smart city theorists advocate relationships fully dependent upon collaboration to address the intense complexity encountered by city governments and achieve city objectives of quality of life, efficiency, effectiveness, and economic and environmental sustainability. Skeptical, we inductively drew together the widely dispersed theoretical tenets of smart city collaboration into a framework of collaborative relationships and tested this framework using secondary evidence as to practice in greater Amsterdam. Mostly authentic collaborative relationships were explicated. Theory is extended by clarifying the roles of actors, especially the role of city government as actor and steward of the collaborative ecosystem. Future research should unpack the factors that impact the sustainability of smart city collaborations. Full article

Flexible charging can be applied to avoid peak loads on the electricity grid by curbing demand of electric vehicle chargers as well as matching charging power with availability of sustainable energy. This paper presents results of a large-scale demonstration project “Flexpower” where time-dependent charging profiles are applied to 432 public charging stations in the city of Amsterdam between November 2019 and March 2020. The charging current on Flexpower stations is reduced during household peak consumption hours (18:00–21:00), increased during the night-time, and dynamically linked to solar intensity levels during the day. The results show that the EV contribution to the grid peak load can be reduced by 1.2 kW per charging station with very limited user impact. The increased charging current during sunny conditions does not lead to a significantly higher energy transfer during the day because of lack of demand and technical limitations in the vehicles. A simulation model is presented based on empirical power measurements over a wide range of conditions combining the flexibility provided by simulations with the power of real-world data. The model was validated by comparing aggregated results to actual measurements and was used to evaluate the impact of different smart charging profiles in the Amsterdam context. Full article

Currently, the efforts of many cities around the world, including Seoul, are aimed at transforming themselves into smart cities under a governance vision. Thus, the purpose of this study is to propose a reinforcement plan for the ’Smart Seoul’ portal to develop into a cooperative, participatory, and network governance. We select four representative smart city portals from Barcelona, Amsterdam, Columbus, and Singapore and evaluate their main features and roles. We sort the features analyzed in each portal based on certain governance strategies, employing their key features as part of our evaluation criteria model. These evaluation criteria are used to analyze the ‘Smart Seoul’ portal and create a strengthening plan. The plan comprises a set of actions intended to improve the portal’s capabilities in terms of disclosure of information, the participation of stakeholders, and civil petition services. When this plan is implemented, the resulting optimal information disclosure through the ‘Smart Seoul’ portal will ensure the transparency of Seoul’s administration and create an environment in which citizens can actively participate in solving urban problems and making decisions. In addition, the results of this study will be an important guideline for the design and operation of smart city portals, and the catalogs for key features are expected to be used to make smart city portal design regulations in the future. Full article

Improving quality of life still remains the main goal of strategic documents and is promoted by leaders on the global, national, regional, and local levels. Moreover, this ambitious challenge should be consistent with the principles of sustainable development, including the social, economic, and environmental aspects. The ISO 37120 indicators within the World Council on City Data (WCCD) database may be used to monitor the urban performance over time. However, the interpretation of the results is not always easy and sometimes requires a complex analysis. The aim of this paper was to investigate the possibility of illustrating in a transparent way the urban quality of life using the utility method. This study also presents that this method may facilitate making data-driven decisions on urban management, planning and investment. Thus, it may be useful for decision makers and help cities and communities of all sizes to become more sustainable, safe and resilient, prosperous, inclusive, and smart. The analysis has been carried out using the examples of selected European cities: Amsterdam, Gdynia, London, and Zagreb. The hypothesis reads as follows: it is possible to use the total and partial utility method in order to assess the level of urban quality of life with regard to the three dimensions of sustainable development in order to monitor progress and results and prioritize and implement the changes within urban policy. Research results indicate that there are significant differences between the compared cities within the economic, social, and ecological aspects. This analysis may constitute an introduction to the development of more complex models in the future. Full article

The emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) as the new paradigm of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and rapid changes in technology and urban needs urge cities around the world towards formulating smart city policies. Nevertheless, policy makers, city planners, and practitioners appear to have quite different expectations from what smart cities can offer them. This has led to the emergence of different types of smart cities and pathways of development. This paper aims to answer the research question: When comparing a selection of smart city projects, can we classify pathways for their implementation? We do this by using a cross-case research design of four cities to explore commonalities and differences in development patterns. An input-output (IO) model of smart city development is used to retrieve which design variables are at play and lead to which output. The four cases pertain to the following smart city projects: Smart Dubai, Masdar City, Barcelona Smart City, and Amsterdam Smart City. Our analysis shows that Amsterdam is based on a business-driven approach that puts innovation at its core; for Masdar, technological optimism is the main essence of the pathway; social inclusion is the focus of Barcelona Smart City; and visionary ambitious leadership is the main driver for Smart Dubai. Based on these insights, a classification for smart city development pathways is established. The results of the present study are useful to academic researchers, smart city practitioners, and policy makers. Full article

Living Labs aim to engage in user-centered design practices where users are included in their daily life environment as innovative agents. However, empirical insights in end user engagement in Living Lab practices are currently lacking. This article focuses on opening up this black box of user engagement by analyzing the involvement of a group of entrepreneurs in a Living Lab smart city pilot in Amsterdam, the Climate street. The goal of the article is to analyze how and to what extent the Climate street enabled the involved entrepreneurs to engage in bottom up innovation. Theoretically, the article explores this pilot from a Science and Technology Studies perspective, specifically its notion of the socio-technical network. The article concludes that user innovativeness was limited by the pre-configuration of the entrepreneur as lay tester rather than as an active user-innovator. Furthermore, it is suggested that the inherent tension in Living Lab practices between configuring users and actual user practices hampers user innovativeness in general. Granting users more agency and opening up Living Lab practices to daily life dynamics stimulates the transition from tester to innovator in a daily life setting and subsequently makes entrepreneurs more readily smart. Full article