Paper by Igor Calzada: “This paper explores the substantial effect that the critical understanding and techno-political consideration of data are having in some smart city strategies. Particularly, the paper presents some results of a comparative study of four cases of smart city transitions: Glasgow, Bristol, Barcelona, and Bilbao. Likewise, considering how relevant the city-regional path-dependency is in each territorial context, the paper will elucidate the notion of smart devolution as a key governance component that is enabling some cities to formulate their own smart city-regional governance policies and implement them by considering the role of the smart citizens as decision makers rather than mere data providers. The paper concludes by identifying an implicit smart city-regional governance strategy for each case based on the techno-politics of data and smart devolution….(More)”
Montreal monitoring city traffic via drivers’ Bluetooth
Springwise: “Rather than rely on once-yearly spot checks of traffic throughout the city, Montreal, Canada, decided to build a more comprehensive picture of what was working well, and what wasn’t working very well, around the city. Working with traffic management company Orange Traffic, the city installed more than 100 sensors along the busiest vehicular routes. The sensors pick up mobile phone Bluetooth signals, making the system inexpensive to use and install as no additional hardware or devices are needed.
Once the sensors pick up a Bluetooth signal, they track it through several measurement points to get an idea of how fast or slow traffic is moving. The data is sent to the city’s Urban Mobility Management Center. City officials are keen to emphasize that no personal data is recorded as Bluetooth signals cannot be linked to individuals. Traffic management and urban planning teams will be able to use the data to redesign problematic intersections and improve the overall mobility of the city’s streets and transport facilities.
Smart cities are those making safety and efficiency a priority, from providing digital driver licenses in India to crowdsourcing a map of cars in bike lanes in New York City….(More)”
Open or Closed? Open Licensing of Real-Time Public Sector Transit Data
Teresa Scassa and Alexandra Diebel in Journal of e-Democracy: “This paper explores how real-time data are made available as “open data” using municipal transit data as a case study. Many transit authorities in North America and elsewhere have installed technology to gather GPS data in real-time from transit vehicles. These data are in high demand in app developer communities because of their use in communicating predicted, rather than scheduled, transit vehicle arrival times. While many municipalities have chosen to treat real-time GPS data as “open data,” the particular nature of real-time GPS data requires a different mode of access for developers than what is needed for static data files. This, in turn, has created a conflict between the “openness” of the underlying data and the sometimes restrictive terms of use which govern access to the real-time data through transit authority Application Program Interfaces (APIs). This paper explores the implications of these terms of use and considers whether real-time data require a separate standard for openness. While the focus is on the transit data context, the lessons from this area will have broader implications, particularly for open real-time data in the emerging smart cities environment….(More)”
Co-Creating the Cities of the Future
Essay by Luis Muñoz in the Special Issue of “Sensors” on Smart City: Vision and Reality : “In recent years, the evolution of urban environments, jointly with the progress of the Information and Communication sector, have enabled the rapid adoption of new solutions that contribute to the growth in popularity of Smart Cities. Currently, the majority of the world population lives in cities encouraging different stakeholders within these innovative ecosystems to seek new solutions guaranteeing the sustainability and efficiency of such complex environments. In this work, it is discussed how the experimentation with IoT technologies and other data sources form the cities can be utilized to co-create in the OrganiCity project, where key actors like citizens, researchers and other stakeholders shape smart city services and applications in a collaborative fashion. Furthermore, a novel architecture is proposed that enables this organic growth of the future cities, facilitating the experimentation that tailors the adoption of new technologies and services for a better quality of life, as well as agile and dynamic mechanisms for managing cities. In this work, the different components and enablers of the OrganiCity platform are presented and discussed in detail and include, among others, a portal to manage the experiment life cycle, an Urban Data Observatory to explore data assets, and an annotations component to indicate quality of data, with a particular focus on the city-scale opportunistic data collection service operating as an alternative to traditional communications. (View Full-Text)”
Towards a DataPlace: mapping data in a game to encourage participatory design in smart cities
Paper by Barker, Matthew; Wolff, Annika and van der Linden, Janet: “The smart city has been envisioned as a place where citizens can participate in city decision making and in the design of city services. As a key part of this vision, pervasive digital technology and open data legislation are being framed as vehicles for citizens to access rich data about their city. It has become apparent though, that simply providing access to these resources does not automatically lead to the development of data-driven applications. If we are going to engage more of the citizenry in smart city design and raise productivity, we are going to need to make the data itself more accessible, engaging and intelligible for non-experts. This ongoing study is exploring one method for doing so. As part of the MK:Smart City project team, we are developing a tangible data look-up interface that acts as an alternative to the conventional DataBase. This interface, or DataPlace as we are calling it, takes the form of a map, which the user places sensors on to physically capture real-time data. This is a simulation of the physical act of capturing data in the real world. We discuss the design of the DataPlace prototype under development and the planned user trials to test out our hypothesis; that a DataPlace can make handling data more accessible, intelligible and engaging for non-experts than conventional interface types….(More)”
Digital Kenya: An Entrepreneurial Revolution in the Making
(Open Access) book edited by Bitange Ndemo and Tim Weiss: “Presenting rigorous and original research, this volume offers key insights into the historical, cultural, social, economic and political forces at play in the creation of world-class ICT innovations in Kenya. Following the arrival of fiber-optic cables in 2009, Digital Kenya examines why the initial entrepreneurial spirit and digital revolution has begun to falter despite support from motivated entrepreneurs, international investors, policy experts and others. Written by engaged scholars and professionals in the field, the book offers 15 eye-opening chapters and 14 one-on-one conversations with entrepreneurs and investors to ask why establishing ICT start-ups on a continental and global scale remains a challenge on the “Silicon Savannah”. The authors present evidence-based recommendations to help Kenya to continue producing globally impactful ICT innovations that improve the lives of those still waiting on the side-lines, and to inspire other nations to do the same….(More)”
The ethical impact of data science
Theme issue of Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A compiled and edited by Mariarosaria Taddeo and Luciano Floridi: “This theme issue has the founding ambition of landscaping data ethics as a new branch of ethics that studies and evaluates moral problems related to data (including generation, recording, curation, processing, dissemination, sharing and use), algorithms (including artificial intelligence, artificial agents, machine learning and robots) and corresponding practices (including responsible innovation, programming, hacking and professional codes), in order to formulate and support morally good solutions (e.g. right conducts or right values). Data ethics builds on the foundation provided by computer and information ethics but, at the same time, it refines the approach endorsed so far in this research field, by shifting the level of abstraction of ethical enquiries, from being information-centric to being data-centric. This shift brings into focus the different moral dimensions of all kinds of data, even data that never translate directly into information but can be used to support actions or generate behaviours, for example. It highlights the need for ethical analyses to concentrate on the content and nature of computational operations—the interactions among hardware, software and data—rather than on the variety of digital technologies that enable them. And it emphasizes the complexity of the ethical challenges posed by data science. Because of such complexity, data ethics should be developed from the start as a macroethics, that is, as an overall framework that avoids narrow, ad hoc approaches and addresses the ethical impact and implications of data science and its applications within a consistent, holistic and inclusive framework. Only as a macroethics will data ethics provide solutions that can maximize the value of data science for our societies, for all of us and for our environments….(More)”
Table of Contents:
- The dynamics of big data and human rights: the case of scientific research; Effy Vayena, John Tasioulas
- Facilitating the ethical use of health data for the benefit of society: electronic health records, consent and the duty of easy rescue; Sebastian Porsdam Mann, Julian Savulescu, Barbara J. Sahakian
- Faultless responsibility: on the nature and allocation of moral responsibility for distributed moral actions; Luciano Floridi
- Compelling truth: legal protection of the infosphere against big data spills; Burkhard Schafer
- Locating ethics in data science: responsibility and accountability in global and distributed knowledge production systems; Sabina Leonelli
- Privacy is an essentially contested concept: a multi-dimensional analytic for mapping privacy; Deirdre K. Mulligan, Colin Koopman, Nick Doty
- Beyond privacy and exposure: ethical issues within citizen-facing analytics; Peter Grindrod
- The ethics of smart cities and urban science; Rob Kitchin
- The ethics of big data as a public good: which public? Whose good? Linnet Taylor
- Data philanthropy and the design of the infraethics for information societies; Mariarosaria Taddeo
- The opportunities and ethics of big data: practical priorities for a national Council of Data Ethics; Olivia Varley-Winter, Hetan Shah
- Data science ethics in government; Cat Drew
- The ethics of data and of data science: an economist’s perspective; Jonathan Cave
- What’s the good of a science platform? John Gallacher
Thinking about Smart Cities: The Travels of a Policy Idea that Promises a Great Deal, but So Far Has Delivered Modest Results
Paper by Amy K. Glasmeier and Molly Nebiolo in Sustainability: “… explores the unique challenge of contemporary urban problems and the technologies that vendors have to solve them. An acknowledged gap exists between widely referenced technologies that city managers utilize to optimize scheduled operations and those that reflect the capability of spontaneity in search of nuance–laden solutions to problems related to the reflexivity of entire systems. With regulation, the first issue type succumbs to rehearsed preparation whereas the second hinges on extemporaneous practice. One is susceptible to ready-made technology applications while the other requires systemic deconstruction and solution-seeking redesign. Research suggests that smart city vendors are expertly configured to address the former, but less adept at and even ill-configured to react to and address the latter. Departures from status quo responses to systemic problems depend on formalizing metrics that enable city monitoring and data collection to assess “smart investments”, regardless of the size of the intervention, and to anticipate the need for designs that preserve the individuality of urban settings as they undergo the transformation to become “smart”….(More)”
How to ensure smart cities benefit everyone
By 2030, 60 percent of the world’s population is expected to live in mega-cities. How all those people live, and what their lives are like, will depend on important choices leaders make today and in the coming years.
Technology has the power to help people live in communities that are more responsive to their needs and that can actually improve their lives. For example, Beijing, notorious for air pollution, is testing a 23-foot-tall air purifier that vacuums up smog, filters the bad particles and releases clear air.
This isn’t a vision of life like on “The Jetsons.” It’s real urban communities responding in real-time to changing weather, times of day and citizen needs. These efforts can span entire communities. They can vary from monitoring traffic to keep cars moving efficiently or measuring air quality to warn residents (or turn on massive air purifiers) when pollution levels climb.
Using data and electronic sensors in this way is often referred to as building “smart cities,” which are the subject of a major global push to improve how cities function. In part a response to incoherent infrastructure design and urban planning of the past, smart cities promise real-time monitoring, analysis and improvement of city decision-making. The results, proponents say, will improve efficiency, environmental sustainability and citizen engagement.
Smart city projects are big investments that are supposed to drive social transformation. Decisions made early in the process determine what exactly will change. But most research and planning regarding smart cities is driven by the technology, rather than the needs of the citizens. Little attention is given to the social, policy and organizational changes that will be required to ensure smart cities are not just technologically savvy but intelligently adaptive to their residents’ needs. Design will make the difference between smart city projects offering great promise or actually reinforcing or even widening the existing gaps in unequal ways their cities serve residents.
City benefits from efficiency
A key feature of smart cities is that they create efficiency. Well-designed technology tools can benefit government agencies, the environment and residents. Smart cities can improve the efficiency of city services by eliminating redundancies, finding ways to save money and streamlining workers’ responsibilities. The results can provide higher-quality services at lower cost….
Environmental effects
Another way to save money involves real-time monitoring of energy use, which can also identify opportunities for environmental improvement.
The city of Chicago has begun implementing an “Array of Things” initiative by installing boxes on municipal light poles with sensors and cameras that can capture air quality, sound levels, temperature, water levels on streets and gutters, and traffic.
The data collected are expected to serve as a sort of “fitness tracker for the city,” by identifying ways to save energy, to address urban flooding and improve living conditions.
Helping residents
Perhaps the largest potential benefit from smart cities will come from enhancing residents’ quality of life. The opportunities cover a broad range of issues, including housing and transportation, happiness and optimism, educational services, environmental conditions and community relationships.
Efforts along this line can include tracking and mapping residents’ health, using data to fight neighborhood blight, identifying instances of discrimination and deploying autonomous vehicles to increase residents’ safety and mobility….(More)“.
Enriching Urban Spaces with Ambient Computing, the Internet of Things, and Smart City Design
Book by Shin’ichi Konomi and George Roussos: “In recent years, the presence of ubiquitous computing has increasingly integrated into the lives of people in modern society. As these technologies become more pervasive, new opportunities open for making citizens’ environments more comfortable, convenient, and efficient.
Enriching Urban Spaces with Ambient Computing, the Internet of Things, and Smart City Design is a pivotal reference source for the latest scholarly material on the interaction between people and computing systems in contemporary society, showcasing how ubiquitous computing influences and shapes urban environments. Highlighting the impacts of these emerging technologies from an interdisciplinary perspective, this book is ideally designed for professionals, researchers, academicians, and practitioners interested in the influential state of pervasive computing within urban contexts….(Table of Contents and List of Contributors)”.