Smart city trends: A focus on 5 countries and 15 companies

A smart city is a sustainable city that solves urban problems and improves citizens’ quality of life through the fourth industrial revolution technology and governance between stakeholders. With the advent of the fourth industrial revolution and the concept of smart cities changing, many smart city studies have been conducted. Still, studies on the overall flow of smart city research and major issues are insufficient. Therefore, this study analyzed the trends and characteristics of smart city research and proposes research directions through smart city literature analyses conducted over the past 10 years, from 2011 to 2020. This study conducted a systematic review of studies related to smart cities over the past 10 years. Smart city research was analyzed by dividing it into research methods and contents. In terms of research method, year, research methodology 1, research methodology 2, research purpose, data collection method, and use of research results were included in the analysis frame. In terms of research content, keywords related to research topics, analysis units, and the general classification criteria and security of smart cities were included. The research results mentioned in this study are expected to serve as useful guidelines for future smart city development projects.

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/3/1687/pdf?version=1643714896

Research Models and Methodologies on the Smart City: A Systematic Literature Review

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2022.103610

Spatio-temporal variations of traffic congestion under work from home (WFH) arrangements: Lessons learned from COVID-19

Currently, the increase of transport demands along with the limited capacity of the road network have increased traffic congestion in urban and highway scenarios. Technologies such as Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) emerge as efficient solutions. However, a higher level of cooperation among multiple vehicle platoons is needed to improve, effectively, the traffic flow. In this paper, a global solution to merge two platoons is presented. This approach combines: (i) a longitudinal controller based on a feed-back/feed-forward architecture focusing on providing CACC capacities and (ii) hybrid trajectory planning to merge platooning on straight paths. Experiments were performed using Tecnalia’s previous basis. These are the AUDRIC modular architecture for automated driving and the highly reliable simulation environment DYNACAR. A simulation test case was conducted using five vehicles, two of them executing the merging and three opening the gap to the upcoming vehicles. The results showed the good performance of both domains, longitudinal and lateral, merging multiple vehicles while ensuring safety and comfort and without propagating speed changes.

Platoon Merging Approach Based on Hybrid Trajectory Planning and CACC Strategies

Utilizing the panel data of 285 prefecture and above cities between 2003 and 2018, this study investigated the effect of smart city policy on urban haze pollution in China at national, regional, and city administrative rank levels by using the difference-in-differences (DID) model and the spatial difference-in-differences (SDID) model. Results show that, in general, smart city policy reduced urban haze pollution of pilot cities. Moreover, the results confirm the presence of spatial heterogeneity in the intensity of the pollution mitigation effect at regional and city administrative rank levels. Additionally, this study identifies the spatial spillover effect of smart city policy and provides empirical evidence of the coexistence of “beggar-thy-neighbor” effect and “demonstration effect”, which indicates the difficulty of haze pollution control in the process of smart city construction and highlights the importance and necessity of top-level design and differentiated policies of smart cities. Finally, several meaningful implications and research avenues are outlined.

/pdf/the-effect-of-smart-city-policy-on-urban-haze-pollution-in-sm3zfgyv.pdf

The Effect of Smart City Policy on Urban Haze
Pollution in China: Empirical Evidence
from a Quasi-Natural Experiment

More countries and regions are joining the bandwagon of smart city construction, which is an important strategy and innovative urban governance concept to solve the problem of rapid urbanization. This paper examines whether smart city innovation is able to ameliorate the traffic congestion faced by a large number of cities. Using panel data for 187 prefecture-level cities in China from 2008 to 2017, this paper tests the effect of implementation of a smart city on urban traffic congestion with the difference-in-difference method. The results show that, firstly, the construction of smart cities have significantly reduced the degree of urban traffic congestion and improved the quality and capacity of public transport. Secondly, information technology and urban innovation are the main mechanisms for smart city implementation to improve urban traffic problems. Thirdly, the improvement effect of smart city implementation on traffic management shows an increasing marginal effect over time. By overcoming the estimation bias in previous studies, this study accurately analyzes the positive role and dynamic effect of smart city construction on traffic improvement. It augments the literature of program evaluation and assessment of smart city implementation. By examining how to improve traffic congestion, it offers some insights that could inspire governments to build smarter cities with better traffic.

/pdf/could-a-smart-city-ameliorate-urban-traffic-congestion-a-4daz5pf9fs.pdf

Jie Guo

Papers

Could a Smart City Ameliorate Urban Traffic Congestion? A Quasi-Natural Experiment Based on a Smart City Pilot Program in China