Interoperable Open Specifications Framework for the Implementation of Standardized Urban Platforms

Abstract

The current cities' urban challenges go through digitalization and integration of new technologies under the perspective of actual and future ecological, as well as socio-economic commitments. This process is translated into the Open Standardized Urban Data Platform, which plays a pivotal role. Within its main functionalities, data ingestion, analytics and services as vertical domains become necessary to create more environmentally friendly cities. However, there still exist some deficits. Among them, openness and interoperability are outlined. On the one hand, there is a lack of open data initiatives for increasing the smart services stock. On the other hand, interoperability depends upon vendors and integrators, reducing the possibilities of Smart City growth. In this context, under the mySMARTLife project (GA #731297) umbrella, an Open Specifications Framework has been developed in order to address four main issues: (1) data interoperability; (2) services or verticals interoperability; (3) openness; and (4) replicability. It enlightens the implementation and integration of multiple city domains (like infrastructures, mobility, energy, buildings) for smart management and big-data analytics. Its applicability is demonstrated in the three lighthouse cities of the project, Nantes (France), Hamburg (Germany) and Helsinki (Finland).

Towards Interoperability of Smart City Data Platforms

“…e.g. [22,39]): foundational, structural, and semantic interoperability. Foundational interoperability allows systems to exchange data [29] gathered with different communication protocols by using gateways, but without the capability to interpret the data [22,39].…”

“…[22,39]): foundational, structural, and semantic interoperability. Foundational interoperability allows systems to exchange data [29] gathered with different communication protocols by using gateways, but without the capability to interpret the data [22,39]. Structural interoperability allows to exchange meaningful data [29], as the structure, format, and syntax of the data is defined [22] through the usage of shared languages or protocols like JSON or MQTT [39].…”

“…Foundational interoperability allows systems to exchange data [29] gathered with different communication protocols by using gateways, but without the capability to interpret the data [22,39]. Structural interoperability allows to exchange meaningful data [29], as the structure, format, and syntax of the data is defined [22] through the usage of shared languages or protocols like JSON or MQTT [39]. Though, the proposed middleware specifications can remain unclear when they belong to different contexts, thus interoperability remains a problem [39].…”

“…The concept of Smart Cities (SC)s is central to the future improvement of quality of life in metropolitan areas [22]. SC can be defined as an urban development vision of integrating and connecting multiple ICT solutions and city's assets in platforms enabling governments, businesses and citizens to communicate and work together using data from heterogeneous sources with the aim to improve the quality of life and enhance efficiency and economical value [1,9].…”

SafeCity: Toward Safe and Secured Data Management Design for IoT-Enabled Smart City Planning

“…Currently, 55% population of the world is in the cities that are expected to grow up to 67% by the year 2050 [1][2]. The gradual increase in the urbanization poses various encounters for the decision-makers in proposing different facilities to the inhabitants of these cities.…”