A smart city is an urbanization region that collects data using several digital and physical devices. The information collected from such devices is used efficiently to manage revenues, resources, and assets, etc., while the information obtained from such devices is utilized to boost performance throughout the city. Cloud-based Internet of Things (IoT) applications could help smart cities that contain information gathered from citizens, devices, homes, and other things. This information is processed and analyzed to monitor and manage transportation networks, electric utilities, resources management, water supply systems, waste management, crime detection, security mechanisms, proficiency, digital library, healthcare facilities, and other opportunities. A cloud service provider offers public cloud services that can update the IoT environment, enabling third-party activities to embed IoT data within electronic devices executing on the IoT. In this paper, the author explored cloud-based IoT applications and their roles in smart cities.

Cloud-Based IoT Applications and Their Roles in Smart Cities

Stretching the stress boundary: Linking air pollution health effects to a neurohormonal stress response General subjects

Smart cities aim to integrate technological development with different functions/components such as mobility, management of energy, natural resources, water, and the waste cycle, air quality, land use, service network, construction, but also the economy, social participation, increased employment, and citizen safety. It includes a series of coordinated and integrated social, environmental and economic interventions to enhance human capital, reduce environmental impacts and solve ecological emergencies. The holistic approach is particular to smart cities, including several mobility aspects in the main European classifications. In particular, the development of smart cities depends on several factors related to transport supply (i.e., mobility service, infrastructure details, ICT) and demand (socio-demographic aspects), and the size of the city. This paper provides an overview of the development of smart cities by defining a methodology that allows the identification of criteria for determining the optimisation of urban mobility with a particular interest in the development of future autonomous mobility. The analysis of current literature on the concept of smart cities and new mobility technologies made it possible to analyse the compatibility between them and possible criticalities. The definition of criteria lays the groundwork for future research steps focused on the application of multicriteria analysis.

The Development of the Smart Cities in the Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) Era: From Mobility Patterns to Scaling in Cities

Autonomous driving is a technological innovation that involves the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the automotive area, representing the future of transport and whose applications will influence the concept of driving and many other features of modern society. Indeed, the introduction of Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) on the market, along with the development of related technologies, will have a potential impact not only on the automotive industry but also on urban transport systems. New mobility-related businesses will emerge, whereas existing ones will have to adapt to changes. There are various aspects that affect urban transport systems: in this work, we highlight how road markings, intersections, and pavement design upgradings have a key role for AVs operation. This work aims to describe how contemporary society will be influenced by Autonomous Vehicles’ spread in regard to urban transport systems. A comprehensive analysis of the expected developments within urban transport systems is hereby presented, and some crucial issues concerning benefits and drawbacks are also discussed. From our studies, it emerges that the detection performed by vehicles is mainly affected by road markings characteristics, especially at intersections. Indeed, the need for a new cross-sections type arise, since vehicles wandering phenomena will be reduced due to AVs position-keeping systems.

Autonomous Vehicles: An Analysis Both on Their Distinctiveness and the Potential Impact on Urban Transport Systems

textRecently we have witnessed the worldwide adoption of many different types of innovative technologies, such as crowdsourcing, ridesharing, open and big data, aiming at delivering public services more efficiently and effectively. Among them, ridesharing has received substantial attention from decision-makers around the world. Because of the multitude of currently understood or potentially unknown risks associated with ridesharing (unemployment, insurance, information privacy, and environmental risk), governments in different countries apply different strategies to address such risks. Some governments prohibit the adoption of ridesharing altogether, while other governments promote it. In this article, we address the question of how risks involved in ridesharing are governed over time. We present an in-depth single case study on Singapore and examine how the Singaporean government has addressed risks in ridesharing over time. The Singaporean government has a strong ambition to become an innovation hub, and many innovative technologies have been adopted and promoted to that end. At the same time, decision-makers in Singapore are reputed for their proactive style of social governance. The example of Singapore can be regarded as a revelatory case study, helping us further to explore governance practices in other countries.

The Governance of Risks in Ridesharing: A Revelatory Case from Singapore

In recent decades, maritime transport demand has increased along with world population and global trades. This is associated with higher pollution levels, including the emissions of GHG and other polluting gases. Ports are important elements within maritime transport and contribute themselves to pollutant emissions. This paper aims to offer a comprehensive yet technical review of the latest related technologies, explaining and covering aspects that link ports with emissions, i.e., analyzing, monitoring, assessing, and mitigating emissions in ports. This has been achieved through a robust scientific analysis of very recent and significant research studies, to offer an up-to-date and reliable overview. Results show the correlation between emissions and port infrastructures, and demonstrate how proper interventions can help with reducing pollutant emissions and financial costs as well, in ports and for maritime transportation in general. Besides, this review also wishes to propose new ideas for future research: new future experimental studies might spin-off from it, and perhaps port Authorities might be inspired to experiment and implement dedicated technologies to improve their impact on environment and sustainability.

https://www.mdpi.com/2412-3811/6/8/114/pdf

Pollutant Emissions in Ports: A Comprehensive Review

In the modern era, characterized by intense urbanization and frequent travel between interconnected communities, the constant expansion of cities, associated with high densities and growing need for traveling, has led to a significant increase in road traffic volumes. More than ever, road traffic today requires effort to be managed effectively in order to improve performance and safety conditions, given the greater probability of unpleasant events such as accidents or road congestion with related delays and the increased stress levels of the user and infrastructure. Fortunately, there are already various engineering tools, such as ramp metering, that can be used for this purpose. Ramp metering allows for achieving the aforementioned desired benefits, including improving mobility, reliability, efficiency, and safety, and even reducing environmental impact. It also has been shown to be cost-effective from the existing literature. Further research will be necessary to strengthen the quality, efficacy, and efficiency of ramp metering, especially considering the fast-paced progress in technology (e.g., connected autonomous vehicles and drones used for surveys) and new challenging scenarios (e.g., congested industrial areas and emergency vehicles). This review’s scope is to present a general overview of principal ramp metering solutions, focusing on current research studies in the last couple of years and highlighting some of the main algorithms used for this purpose, depending on diverse scenarios. With this article, the authors desire to present the subject of ramp metering, providing a general overview of its story, evolution, and recent analytical models.

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/2/850/pdf

Analysis and Evaluation of Ramp Metering: From Historical Evolution to the Application of New Algorithms and Engineering Principles

Maritime Transport is one of the sources of atmospheric pollution, contributing with gaseous emissions mainly caused by marine engines and fossil fuel combustion, and characterized by the production of substances such as CO2, CO, NOx, SOx and PMx, harmful to the environment and human health. Cold Ironing, also known as Alternative Maritime Power (AMP) or Shoreside Supply, is one of the most relatively recent technologies designed to reduce emissions in the maritime industry: it consists in a three-parts system to connect shore-side located power sources, especially with renewable energies and smart grids, to on-board systems able to receive and store electricity, through intermediate connection devices that allow electricity to flow from the port into ships. This technology has been proved to bring financial and environmental benefits, considering also the rise in fuel costs; however, it is still facing some challenges in getting widespread worldwide, mainly due to retrofitting and upgrade costs. It will also require more specific policies and regulations involving stakeholders of different technical and geographical nature. Scientific research is however promising under all these aspects, as it is demonstrating significant reductions in terms of emissions and externalities. 

The role of cold ironing in maritime transport emissions

In last decades cities were subjected to an important increase of inhabitants, then significant changes occurred on communities livability related to several aspects as urban mobility and information management. In order to handle the rising demand recent technological innovations as IoT (Internet of Things) or ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems) resulted to have a key role for an efficient and safe management. Then such process that makes cities able to ensure a high quality data management for citizens and equipped with technological devices lead to a concept named “|atSmart City”. The latter has various definitions that changed in relation to specific studies that were carried out by researchers, however between various actors that characterizes a smart city a key role is represented by AVs (Autonomous Vehicles) that in recent years had a significant spread on market. AVs operation in addition with a smart city environment allows to achieves high quality standards in terms of urban mobility related to service quality and safety. It is possible to state that AVs operation and smart city environment are complementary, because AVs cannot obtain high performance levels without a context equipped with appropriate technological devices and smart cities have to guarantee an efficient and safe mobility to be considerate as such. In this paper it will be carried out an analysis of smart cities main characteristics and developments, taking into account mainly the relation with AVs spread and the benefits that the latter are able provide. 

Salvatore Barberi

Papers

Autonomous Vehicles: An Analysis Both on Their Distinctiveness and the Potential Impact on Urban Transport Systems

Pollutant Emissions in Ports: A Comprehensive Review

Analysis and Evaluation of Ramp Metering: From Historical Evolution to the Application of New Algorithms and Engineering Principles

The role of cold ironing in maritime transport emissions

Smart city: Effects on urban mobility and expected developments due to autonomous vehicles