ECAI 2019 – International Conf erence 11th Edition [629133]

ECAI 2019 – International Conf erence – 11th Edition
Electronics, Computers and Artificial Intelligence
27 June -29 June, 2019, Pitesti, ROMÂNIA
978-1-7281-1624-2/19/$31.00 ©2019 IEEE Overview of
e-Services providing in Smart Cities
Eugen Pop1, Sorin Pu școci1
1Communications Terminals & Telematics Department
I.N.S.C.C [anonimizat]
[anonimizat]

Abstract – Smart Cities represents a domain which is of a
great interest form the scientific, economic and political
point of view. In many cities, around the world, a “Smart
City” strategy intends to inc rease the efficiency of the
resources and infrastructures management fulfilling, in the same time, the requirements of development, inclusion and
sustainability. The city authorities and headquarters are
interested to apply procedural and methodological procedures in order to solve the urban problems more efficiently, to become more sustainable and competitive by
deployed and providing e-services. This paper presents the
Smart City concept and the and an overview of the main e-services types used to deploy it. In order to further enhance the understanding of how ICT solutions can make cities smarter and more sustainable, as well as to support
decision-makers, practitioners and citizens alike in the
development of novel approaches to urban development, ITU-T Focus Group on Smart Sustainable Cities (FG-SSC) is developing a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) to
measure and assess ICT's impact on SSC.
Keywords: Smart City, e-Services, ICT infrastructure, IoT
I. INTRODUCTION
Cities around the world are facing with the population
increasing and rapid urbanization and it is estimated that, up to 2050, almost two-thirds pf population will live in cities. These problems will generate issues like: economic grow decreasing, pollution, environmental degradation, unequal housing and many others. Besides several solutions which have been tried, to overcome these major inconveniences, the Smart City concept appears to be the most efficient model and strategy. [1].
A Smart City constantly improves the living and
working conditions, provided to the citizens, using the Information and Communications Technology – ICT.
A Smart City performs an effective integration of
physical, digital and human systems in the built environment to deliver a sustainable, prosperous and inclusive future for its citizens [2].
Several technological companies used the term “Smart
City” to describe the integration of urban infrastructure and services like, buildings, water and electrical distribution, transportation, public safety and security, etc. A Smart City accomplishes tasks as follows [3]:
 collects real time data, retrieved from the urban
environment and analyzes it through software systems, client devices, network infrastructure, software applications,  assure a complex informational flow between the
urban municipality, citizens and business environment as a support for decision making;
 uses the support of the sensors, mobile devices,
actuators to provide solutions to improve the living and working conditions of the citizens;
 implements an urban intelligent environment, based
on e-services deploying and providing.
The main dimensions which are accepted in literature
for a Smart City are: Smart Economy, Smart Mobility, Smart Environment, Smart People, Smart Life, and Smart Governance.
The following sections of the paper are: ICT
application in Smart Cities, main e-services types in Smart Cities, ICT infrastructure – we will highlight the main items used in Smart City developments, and conclusions and future research.

II
ICT APPLICATIONS IN SMART CITIES
A. Collecting Data

From the ICT point of view, a Smart City realizes the
data collecting, communicating and analyzing. Through sensors, other devices and existing systems, a smart city collects information about itself. Then, the data transmission is accomplished through wired or wireless networks and, finally, the information is analyzed by the headquarters, policy makers and business community.
Collecting data. Smart devices are logically located
throughout the city to measure and monitor conditions. As
an example, smart meters can measure water, gas and
electricity, with a remarkable precision. On road congestion and conditions can be reported by traffic sensors. Devices with embedded GPS sensors can point out the city buses locations or of the emergency crews.
The weather conditions can be reported by automated
stations. Smartphones carried by citizens are including sensors which are able, with their users permission, to store and transmit their position, speed and various environmental parameters from the neighborhood, at certain moments of the day.
In this vision, Smart Cities will need to manage the
limited natural resource which is the radiofrequency spectrum, which is widely consumed by Smartphones. Consequently a Smart City is aware about itself and transmits the corresponding information to the population as, for example:

 smart transportation networks reports the traffic
congestions;
 smart gas or water networks detects and send
information regarding the gas and water leaks;
 smart environment networks collects the data
regarding the position of the garbage transporting vehicles. policy makers and business community.
B. Communicating Data
Communicating data. Once the data is collected, the
need to transmit it to the decision makers appears. The data transmission is achieved through cabled, fiber-optic, mobile or wireless communication channels.
Thus, any user can access the information of interest,
within the Smart City environment, anytime and from anywhere. Interoperability is a very important issue.
C. Analyzing Data
Analyzing data After the data is collected and
transmitted, it is analyzed at the decision levels for: presenting, perfecting and predicting. Large volumes of data are processed and analyzed.
Analyzing amounts of data may lead to interesting
results obtaining business community.
Presenting information provides a real time vision of
the Smart City context. Sometimes this is called “situational awareness” The data traffic is analyzed through adequate software applications, then is synthesized and visualized in an adequate way to be understood by human operators and dissidents.
As an example, a smart dispatching center can monitor
basic issues of an emergency situation, including the location and actions of ambulances, police, fire, power line downed, traffic, closed streets and so on.
Perfecting operations optimize complex systems
through the aid of computing technologies as, for example:
 balancing the demand and supply of an electricity
network;
 minimizing congestions through the traffic signals
synchronizing;
 selecting the ideal routes and fuel costs for a
delivery fleet;
 optimizing the energy usage to obtain a high
comfort level for a decreased cost;
Prediction represents a very important step of an
analysis as, for example, traffic jams prediction while there is still time to minimize their effects.
Cities benefit by collecting, communicating and
information analyzing information especially when data is available for multiple third parties and departments.
Municipalities can combine historic traffic information
with data regarding the business expansion and population increasing, to decide where and when to add or subtract bus and train lines. A smart city represents a system of systems, referring
to environment, emergency acting, water, power, transportation, etc.– with strong interactions between them.
Perfecting, predicting and presenting improves a smart
city’s development within all it’s characteristics dimensions.
A Smart City reference model comprising six
independent “layers” as infrastructure, communications, sensors, data platform, applications and security, is presented in the Fig. 1.

Figure 1: Smart City reference model

These represent larger ICT areas, providing the main
functionality of a platform for the various applications of a Smart City. The ICT infrastructure it is useful to integrate it within the Smart City reference model which is presented in the Fig. 1.
III. MAIN E-SERVICES TYPES IN SMART CITIES
A Smart City offer to the citizens the possibility to
access online data, applications, computing resources, etc., in the form of e-services.
An e-service represents a function that is well-defined,
self-contained, can be accessed through the Internet and does not depend of the context or state of other services.
The main e-services which can be accessed by the
customers, are connected with the main dimensions of a Smart City, are presented in the following [5]:

 E-Government services refer to public complaints,
administrative procedures at local and at national level, job searches and public procurement.
 E-Democracy services facilitate the consultation,
dialogue, polling and voting, referring to problems which are of common interests in the city area.
 E-Business services mainly support business
installation, concerning the practice of selling goods and
services and carrying on other business / economic
activities, digital marketplaces etc. while they enable digital marketplaces and tourist guides
 E-Health and tele-care services offer support from
distance to particular groups of citizens such as civilians with diseases, elderly people etc.

 E-Security services support public safety via through
transmitting alert notifications, school monitoring, disaster situations management etc.
 Environmental services support households and
enterprises in waste/energy/water management and contain public information about recycling. Moreover, they deliver data to the city authorities for monitoring and decision making on environmental conditions as, for example, noise, pollution, microclimate, traffic etc.
 Intelligent Transportation (Transportation market-
driven group) supports the improvement of the quality of life in the city, while it offers tools for traffic monitoring, measurement and optimization (delivered in Digital and Smart city approaches).
 Communication services such as broadband
connectivity, fiber, mobile and wireless communications, digital TV etc, assures the support for the huge amount of data which is transmitted through the city.
 E-Learning and e-Education services.
 Intelligent Transportation offers tools for traffic
optimization, monitoring, measurement with the target of improvement of the life quality within the city.

Smart transport systems are services that facilitate the
transport of people or goods and which improve the efficiency of the use of various resources by making transport methods more easily managed or more easily available [6].
Examples of services and functions include various
types of smart traffic monitoring, parking systems, traffic planning and systems for pricing transport, for example, during various times and routes.

IV. KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS IN SMART CITIES
Key Performance Indicators – KPI, represents a set of
useful data for assessing the impact and contribution of ICT in the implementation of Smart Cities' development strategy by business, academia, etc.
Thus, on the basis of these indicators, citizens, non-
profit organizations, local government, etc. can evaluate the state of progress of implementing the Smart City strategy, with reference to the impact of Information Technology and Communications. In turn, service and utility providers can assess the contribution and impact of ICTs to the sustainable development of the city and can exchange information on this issue.
The Key performance indicators were defined for
standardization purposes, covering all the main dimensions of a Smart City.
The Key Performance Indicators are grouped into
several important categories, as in the Fig. 2, having the meanings which are presented in the Table 1, according to ISO 37120.

Figure 2: The Key Performance Indicators for Smart Cities

Tabel 1 Sub-dimensions of KPI
Dimension Sub-dimensions
Information and
communication technology Network and access
Services and information platforms
Information security and privacy
Electromagnetic field
Environmental
sustainability Air quality , CO 2 emissions
Energy, Indoor pollution Water , soil and noise
Productivity Capital investment
Employment Inflation Trade Savings Export/import Household income/consumption Innovation Knowledge economy
Quality of life Education
Health Safety/security public place Convenience and comfort
Equity and social
inclusion Inequity of income/consumption
Social and gender inequity of access to
services and infrastructure
Openness and public participation
Governance
Physical
infrastructure Infrastructure/connection to services
– piped water, sewage, electricity, waste
management, knowledge infrastructure, health infrastructure, transport, road
infrastructure
Housing – building materials living space

V. SMART CITY ICT INFRASCTRUCTURE
The ICT infrastructure is a very important component
of the smart city development. To realize a smart city in a resource-efficient manner, a city needs to establish an accessible communications platform. Fixed, mobile wireless, satellite networks are very important for a city which implements a „Smart City” strategy. and business community.
A. Data acquisition and sensing layer
Within a Smart City, the data acquisition and sensing
layer mainly consists of IoT, RFID, ZigBee, GPS, etc
a) Internet of Things (IoT)
IoT consists in using of sensors to register various
types of data, such as the values of heat, pressure, light intensity, speed, weight etc., and wireless communication in various types of physical products on a large scale, where devices are connected to the internet and work without human interaction [7 ], [8].
When many sensors are connected, this creates big
data, allowing the physical world to be analyzed in detail and, in many cases, in real time. The data is useful to optimize the way in which the city resources are consumed.
It is important to have a city infrastructure that can
manage the resource access and capacity, because IoT based services deals with both situations.
There are many tendencies in the IoT area that
requires an efficient infrastructure of a Smart City, Fig. 3.

Figure 3: IoT Applications Areas

In the next period, IoT applications will be found in
almost all domains and a huge number of physical devices, such as buildings and street lights, will have to be fibre-connected.
It is expected that number of IoT devices will increase
with approximately 30% every year until 2020 and this grow will be driven especially by the industry.

b) RFID and Sensors
The main function of an RFID tag is to identify and
track what, which and where the object accurately. Sensor provides data regarding the environment which surrounds an object. The integration of wireless sensing technologies with RFID tags on moving objects provides their location
and status data.
The main distinguishing feature of an RFID sensor tag
from a normal RFID tag is that, apart from tracking and monitoring functions, sensor-enabled RFID can make decisions on the basis of data collected by the sensor.
In combination with modern wireless networks, these
features create the basis for a myriad of applications in national security, military field, agriculture, medicine, retail, food industry and many other sectors of the economy.

c) ZigBee
ZigBee is a specification standard for several high
level communication protocols used to create personal area networks built from small, low-power digital radios. ZigBee is based on an IEEE 802.15 standard. In spite of the fact here are low-powered, ZigBee devices are able to transmit data over longer distances through intermediate devices, targeting more distant ones. Thus, a mesh network can be created. They can be used in applications that require long battery life, a low data rate and secure networking.
The wireless sensor network (WSN) consists of a
group of heterogeneous and spatially dispersed autonomous sensors deployed. Is expected that Smart City solutions using WSN to generate important results in this arena [9].
The purpose of these networks is monitoring and
recording of physical or environmental conditions, such as temperature, sound, pressure, etc., and to cooperatively pass related data through the network to a main location
Sensor networks will provide vast arrays of real-time,
remote interaction with the physical world.
Distributed intelligence from the sensor to the network
will become as essential as the Internet – wireless sensor networks give the opportunities for the collation of data which is fit for the purpose supporting the creation of Smart Cities, Fig. 4.

Figure 4: IoT and Sensor networks monitored through Internet

B. Communication layer
a ) 5G
The next generation mobile network 5G is often called
the network that will be able to connect and “share data anytime by anyone and anything, anywhere”.
That which is going to make 5G possible is a
combination of expanding and increasing the number of

mobile masts and phased upgrading of existing
technologies in mobile communications.
Industry groups and institutions have identified a set
of eight requirements for 5G
 1-10 Gbps connections to end points in the field
 1 millisecond end-to-end round trip delay (latency)
 10-100X number of connected devices
 Up to ten-year battery life for low power, machine-
type devices.
The development of 5G will be driven largely by
commercial actors and global research collaborations.
This will require an expansion of the fibre
infrastructure in the street space.

b) FTTx Access Networks

Fiber to the X (FTTX) is a generic term for any
broadband network architecture using optical fiber to provide all or part of the local loop used for last mile telecommunications. The term is a generalization for several configurations of fiber deployment, ranging from FTTN (fiber to the neighborhood) to FTTH (fiber to the home). The nearer the fiber is to the end user the faster the
end to end transmission can be.
C. Data services and application layer
a) Big data
“Big Data” analyzing transforms information into
intelligence which helps people and machines to interact and make better decisions. Thus, a virtual cycle is started,
wherein data is made useful, people use this information
to increase the decisions efficiency and improves the community behavior. This means that more and better data is collected so further improving decision making process [10], [12].
Big data means the great data volume which is
produced and is available within the knowledge based society as well as the new opportunities for analyzing and using the information.
Data is often described as unstructured, like the data
from e-mails or social media or structured, as is the system-generated data.
The quantity of data is growing exponentially and
more than 90% of all data in the world was generated over only the last two years.
Two important applications of Big Data are usually
mentioned:
 Analytical big data, targeting the collection and
analysis of large amounts of data, in order to gain a better vision of processes, environment, etc. Analytical big data technology can be applied to both structured and unstructured data.
 Operational big data refers to the use of big data in
ongoing operations with real-time analysis. In most cases this implies writing and reading data, which often requires structured data sources to be possible. Operational big
data requires low latency networks. [13]
b) Cloud services
“Cloud services” are technologies in which large,
scalable resources – such as processing power, storage and features – are provided as online services. Instead of users having to own and be responsible for these resources, they can easily access and use them via the internet, either directly from the web browser or via special software and apps.
Examples of commonly used cloud services include
web mail (Gmail) online data storage (Dropbox) and CRM systems (Salesforce.com). Today, about half of all firms use cloud services in some form [10].
Cloud services are usually divided into three
categories, depending upon what is provided as a service as follows:
 SaaS or Software-as-a-Service: Users gain access to
software on the cloud service provider’s network and do not have to administer the underlying infrastructure, such as hardware, operating systems, storage, etc. Examples are web mail and Google Docs.
 PaaS or Platform-as-a-Service: Users, usually
programmers or system developers, gain access to various
development environments to create their own applications and software. Examples are MS Azure and Google App Engine.
 IaaS or Infrastructure-as-a-Service: The supplier
provides processing power, storage and network components that make it possible for users to install and run any software, including operating systems. Examples are Oracle Virtual Box and VMware. Cloud services are also generally said to have three different distribution models.
 Public cloud: The service is available to the public,
owned and administered by the provider and shared by multiple customers and users. The public cloud is what is most often associated with cloud services.
 Private cloud: The infrastructure and included
services are run exclusively for a single firm or organization. These may be managed in-house or by an external vendor and be placed in both internal and external computer centers.
 Hybrid cloud: A combination of multiple cloud
services that enables the integration of these cloud services [11].
V. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH

In this paper the general Smart City concept and the
main framework of e-services which can be provided, within this context, to the citizens and business community are presented.
The ICT infrastructure, consisting of the data
acquisition, sensing, communication, data services and application layers is also analyzed in the paper, as a very important component of a Smart City development strategy.

Standardization is of a very important concern
regarding the Smart City deployment. The paper presents synthetically a set of a Key Performance Indicators, adapted to Smart City basic domains.
This represents a significant contribution for assessing
the impact of ICT based services in the implementation of Smart Cities' development strategy.
Future research directions are the following:
 to identify main Smart City e-services and
application classes, to be provided to various customers as citizens, business community etc.
 to analyze development platforms useful for e-
services and applications developing and deployment.

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