A Holistic and Interoperable Approach towards the Implementation of Services for the Digital Transformation of Smart Cities: The Case of Vitoria-Gasteiz (Spain)

Abstract

Cities in the 21st century play a major role in the sustainability and climate impact reduction challenges set by the European agenda. As the population of cities grows and their environmental impact becomes more evident, the European strategy aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—the main cause of climate change. Measures to reduce the impact of climate change include reducing energy consumption, improving mobility, harnessing resources and renewable energies, integrating nature-based solutions and efficiently managing infrastructure. The monitoring and control of all this activity is essential for its proper functioning. In this context, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) plays a key role in the digitisation, monitoring, and managing of these different verticals. Urban data platforms support cities on extracting Key Performance Indicators (KPI) in their efforts to make better decisions. Cities must be transformed by applying efficient urban planning measures and taking into account not only technological aspects, but also by applying a holistic vision in building solutions where citizens are at the centre. In addition, standardisation of platforms where applications are integrated as one is necessary. This requires interoperability between different verticals. This article presents the information platform developed for the city of Vitoria-Gasteiz in Spain. The platform is based on the UNE 178104 standard to provide a holistic architecture that integrates information from the different urban planning measures implemented in the city. The platform was constructed in the context of the SmartEnCity project following the urban transformation strategy established by the city. The article presents the value-added solutions implemented in the platform. These solutions have been developed by applying co-creation techniques in which stakeholders have been involved throughout the process. The platform proposes a step forward towards standardization, harmonises the integration of data from multiple vertical, provides interoperability between services, and simplifies scalability and replicability due to its microservice architecture.

A Comprehensive Study on User-Centric Smart Life Solutions: Integrating Mobile Integrated Technology and Big Data Analytics for Digitalized Smart City Environments

“…Smart city development studies have provided insights, according to Larrinaga et al (2021), O'Dwyer, Pan, Acha, and Shah (2019), and Whaiduzzaman (2022. MIT solutions, big data analytics, and user-centered design in digitalized smart cities remain understudied.…”

The Influence of Big Data Management on Organizational Performance in Organizations: The Role of Electronic Records Management System Potentiality

“…In this digital transformation period, daily users' data is a significant source of predictions about their activities, gathered from competitors and market stakeholders, which plays a significant role in building competitive strategies (Larrinaga et al, 2021). Other data storage and processing shortcomings include the inability to capture and store freshly generated and existing vast amounts of data and the incompatibility with ERMS (Oladejo & Hadžidedić, 2021;Papadopoulos et al, 2022).…”

Activities Related to an Electromobility Strategy as a Part of Low Carbon Energy Transition: A Survey in Polish Communes

“…Spanish studies also confirm that it is not uncommon for municipalities, metropolitan areas, and cities to implement efforts to introduce intelligent management systems, including traffic management. An example is a platform based on the UNE 178104 standard, providing a holistic architecture integrating information from various urban planning processes implemented in the city of Vitoria-Gasteiz in Spain [15]. On the other hand, another study shows that changes in electromobility may be limited by parallel demographic developments, population distribution in suburban areas, and the growth of road infrastructure [16].…”

“…Energies 2022, 15, 3934 Acknowledgments: The work was carried out as part of the statutory activity of the Poznan University of Economics and Business.…”