Search results for "smart cities"
showing 10 items of 39 documents
Special Issue “Smart Urban Lighting Systems”
2020
The design and operation of multifunctional infrastructures for public lighting as well as their impact on the urban environment and citizens’ life is today of great interest. The cost of energy for public lighting is often an issue for the budget of municipalities. Furthermore, researchers’ and designers’ attention is increasingly focused on aspects of public lighting not directly valuable through economic factors. Starting from the “quality” of the light environment, looking at citizens’ visual comfort, the light has to be considered as an instrument to improve the urban context and objects therein (including buildings). Indeed, urban degradation (lack of infrastructures, maintenance, ser…
Building Resilient Smart Cities for Sustainable Urban Tourism in Africa Post-COVID-19 Pandemic
2022
AbstractThis paper contributes to the knowledge by examining the role of smart tourism technologies in destination resilience amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Considering tourism in the COVID-19 crisis as an emerging stream of research, the study also explores how African cities deployed smart tourism technologies and how effective it has been in creating resilient and safe destinations. Data were collected through a semi-structured online interview from destination managers in Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa. The findings pose critical lessons for city destinations and how they need to transition into smartness to create safe spaces for travellers during and post-COVID-19. Our study makes nove…
La città sostenibile. Dagli ecovillaggi alle smart cities
2012
Dall'inizio della rivoluzione industriale le città hanno richiesto crescenti quantità di energia per alimentare i processi produttivi e i bisogni dei cittadini, diventando comè noto, il luogo più inquinato del pianeta e dove si ha il maggiore consumo di energia. Nei prossimi anni le città sono chiamate a superare la dipendenza dai combustibili fossili e a ridefinire il proprio modello di funzionamento energetico e ambientale, che rischia di entrare in crisi a causa di un'intensa urbanizzazione, della crescita di emissioni di CO2, della riduzione del peso delle easy oil. L'articolo analizza due nuovi modi di interpretare le città: gli ecovillaggi e le smart cities.
Between the Megalopolis and the Deep Blue Sky: Challenges of Transport with UAVs in Future Smart Cities
2019
International audience; With the rapid increase of the world's urban population, the infrastructure of the constantly expanding metropolitan areas is undergoing an immense pressure. To meet the growing demands of sustainable urban environments and improve the quality of life for citizens, municipalities will increasingly rely on novel transport solutions. In particular, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are expected to have a crucial role in the future smart cities thanks to their interesting features such as autonomy, flexibility, mobility, adaptive altitude, and small dimensions. However, densely populated megalopolises of the future are administrated by several municipals, governmental and…
A Network Tomography Approach for Traffic Monitoring in Smart Cities
2018
Traffic monitoring is a key enabler for several planning and management activities of a Smart City. However, traditional techniques are often not cost efficient, flexible, and scalable. This paper proposes an approach to traffic monitoring that does not rely on probe vehicles, nor requires vehicle localization through GPS. Conversely, it exploits just a limited number of cameras placed at road intersections to measure car end-to-end traveling times. We model the problem within the theoretical framework of network tomography, in order to infer the traveling times of all individual road segments in the road network. We specifically deal with the potential presence of noisy measurements, and t…
Human Mobility Simulator for Smart Applications
2019
Several issues related to Smart City development require the knowledge of accurate human mobility models, such as in the case of urban development planning or evacuation strategy definition. Nevertheless, the exploitation of real data about users' mobility results in severe threats to their privacy, since it allows to infer highly sensitive information. On the contrary, the adoption of simulation tools to handle mobility models allows to neglect privacy during the design of location-based services. In this work, we propose a simulation tool capable of generating synthetic datasets of human mobility traces; then, we exploit them to evaluate the effectiveness of algorithms which aim to detect…
Smart Cities Atlas Western and Eastern Intelligent Communities
2016
The book discusses the concept of the smart city, and is based on a multi-service and multi-sectoral approach to urban planning, including various urban functions and the human capital of cities. The work is divided into three parts. The first is an introductory section which covers definitions, policies and tools used at European level for the development and classification of a smart city. The second presents a selection of examples of Western and Eastern communities, which experienced technologies and strategies that have made them smart. The third describes in detail the main three possible approaches (economical, technological and social) to the smart city concept which are the focus a…
Urban Energy Hubs and Microgrids: Smart Energy Planning for Cities
2017
In this chapter, we try to connect the urban design features with energy consumption and consequent pollution parameters. After a review of a selected set of approaches to Urban Energy Systems study with a special focus on electrical power systems, urban energy systems are proposed as networks of multi-source hybrid energy hubs, where different energy flows are collected at the same bus and can be stored, delivered or transformed as needed. Resources at the hub and infrastructures interact with each other; therefore, both definition and boundaries of such energy systems at urban level are difficult to be clearly outlined. Similarly, the possibility to generate new operational models based o…
Riqualificazione e sostenibilità - L’involucro verde come campo privilegiato di sperimentazione tecnologica.
2015
The study of the housing green for the redevelopment of the buildings along with the testing of innovative products for the realization of vertical gardens and the design of guidelines for the construction and environmental transformation of the waterfront of Marina Todaro of Palma di Montechiaro "act as instruments to define the possible prospects to Palma di Montechiaro can apply for green city of the Province of Agrigento, exploring scenarios still little practiced in this context and in the short and medium term can be attributed character priority ". The originality of this research is also experienced in site participatory approach with the participation of the inhabitants, considered…
Designing Cognitive Cities
2018
The following text intends to give an introduction into some of the basic ideas which determined the conception of this book. Thus, the first part of this article introduces the terms “City”, “Smart City” and “Cognitive City”. The second part gives an overview of design theories and approaches such as Action Design Research and Ontological Design (a concept in-the-making), in order to deduce from a theoretical point of view some of the principles that needs to be taken into account when designing the Cognitive City. The third part highlights some concrete techniques that can be usefully applied to the problem of citizen communication for Cognitive Cities (namely Metaheuristics, Fuzzy Sets a…