Systematic Literature Review on Smart City Dimensions

Nurul Izzah Abdul Aziz1, Nur Tasnim Shamsuddin2, Zaihisma Che Cob3, Nur Laila
Ab Ghani4, Sulfeeza Mohd Drus5
1 College of Computer Science and Information Technology, Universiti Tenaga Nasional,
Jalan IKRAM - UNITEN, 43000 Kajang, Selangor.

lncs@springer.com

Abstract. A Smart City is a developed urban area that creates sustainable eco-
nomic development and high quality of life by excelling in multiple key areas;
economy, mobility, environment, people, living, and government. Smart City is
a city development concept incorporating both ICT-based and urban studies-
based aspects.

Keywords: Smart City, smart mobility, smart living, smart grid, big data
analytic

1 Introduction

The rapid transition to a highly urbanized population has created numerous

challenges for the planning, development, and operation of cities. As a result, architects,
urban planners, and designers need to adopt innovative ideas and strategies when de-
veloping smart cities (Harrison & Donnelly, 2012). A smart city concept initially was
introduced to the government by city developers to meet the demand of modern tech-
nology, effective interactions, efficient transportation and diversity of public infrastruc-
ture which are the basic necessities demanded by the urban population in a city. Smart
urban development improves the city delivery system by implementing higher technol-
ogy interfaces in the governance systems (Belissent & Frederic, 2013). Smart cities are
needed to handle the problems like global environment and urbanization, global warm-
ing and climate change, population increase and resource depletion and adverse effects
of increasing urbanization (Hitachi, 2012).

In this light, the need to measure smart city arises at least for two reasons: to be
able to establish the smartness of a city in relation to the other cities and, more im-
portantly, to identify smart features in which the city lags in order to target for improve-
ment for the city. (Adnan, Hamzah, & Alias, 2016).
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2 Smart City Components

Smart cities are responsive, intelligent, connected and sustainable. A city is also
viewed as smart when “it has addressed the challenges of crowding, crime, sprawl,
traffic congestion, waste, energy overconsumption, pollution, divides, government red
tape, and bureaucratic inertia to name a few” (Alawadhi & Scholl, 2013). Smart cities
are made up of three main dimensions. These dimensions were constituted as indicators
for city smartness, to indicate the extent to which a city is smart. This section discusses
the factors that were taken into consideration in developing the Smart City.

2.1 Smart Mobility

Mobility is one of the most important facilities to support the functioning of the
urban area. A difference between mobility and smart mobility might be the public ac-
cessibility to the real time information in order to save time and improve the trip, save
money and reduce CO2 emissions as well as connect and guide transport to improve
services and provide information to citizens (Manville, 2014). Smart mobility is basic
in the smart transformation of cities (Van Audenhove et al., 2014). In other words Smart
Mobility could consist of a hypothetically infinite number of initiatives often charac-
terized by the use of ICT. Most of the opportunities of smart mobility are related to
technological innovations for managing and organizing trips and traffic and for improv-
ing the environmental efficiency of vehicles; but the impacts of these innovations, in
particular over the long term, depend on how they are embedded by the users in their
daily activities and practices. (Staricco, 2013).

In smart mobility domain, the three components are: 1) mixed-modal access rep-
resents public transport use, which is the public transport trips per total trips; 2) priori-
tized clean & non-motorized options denote the percentage of clean-energy transport
use, such as electric train, bicycle and subway; and 3) integrated ICT represents the
number of transit services that offer real-time information to the public. (Yau et al.,
2016).

For instance, the current government projects towards smart city development are
Putrajaya administrative centre, Cyberjaya, Subang Jaya, Iskandar Malaysia, and
MyRapid Transit (MRT) which is the latest project in urban transportation (Rahman,
2011).

In this study, Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) are advanced applications to

collect, storage and process data, information and knowledge aiming at planning, im-
plementing and evaluating integrated initiatives and policies of Smart Mobility.
(Benevolo, Dameri, & Auria, 2016). They are a large and heterogeneous set of appli-
cations, including:

• Demand control systems for access to reserved areas (cordon pricing, congestion
pricing, electronic tolling, with GPS, pay as you drive);
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• Integrated parking guidance systems;

• Demand control systems for access to reserved areas (cordon pricing, congestion
pricing, electronic tolling, with GPS, pay as you drive);
• Integrated parking guidance systems;
• Variable Message Signs (VMS);
• Urban Traffic Control (UTC);
• Video surveillance systems for area and environment security;
• Integrated systems for mobility management;
• Traffic data collection systems;
• Expert systems for the correlation and filtering of events; etc.

For instance, the current government projects towards smart city development are
Putrajaya administrative centre, Cyberjaya, Subang Jaya, Iskandar Malaysia, and
MyRapid Transit (MRT) which is the latest project in urban transportation (Rahman,
2011).

2.2 Smart Grid

To meet the goals of a smart city in supporting a sustainable high-quality lifestyle
for citizens, a smart city needs a smart grid. Smart cities depend on a smart grid to
ensure resilient delivery of energy to supply their many functions, present opportunities
for conservation, improve efficiencies and, most importantly, enable coordination be-
tween urban officialdom, infrastructure operators, those responsible for public safety
and the public. A smart grid is a digitally enabled electric grid that gathers, distributes
and acts on information about the behavior of all components in order to improve the
efficiency, reliability and sustainability of electricity services.

A smart grid alone does three things. First, it modernizes power systems through
self-healing designs, automation, remote monitoring and control, and establishment of
microgrids. Second, it informs and educates consumers about their energy usage, costs
and alternative options, to enable them to make decisions autonomously about how and
when to use electricity and fuels. Third, it provides safe, secure and reliable integration
of distributed and renewable energy resources. All these add up to an energy infrastruc-
ture that is more reliable, more sustainable and more resilient. Thus, a smart grid sits at
the heart of the smart city, which cannot fully exist without it. (Geisler, 2013).

2.3 Smart Living

Giffinger et al. (2007) have described that smart living encompasses of excellence
facilities in housing, health, security, education, culture, tourism and social cohesion.
The rise of Malaysian standard of living among senior citizens will create the need for
more outpatient-care and senior living facilities. Current Malaysian ICT-infrastructure
does allow for development of smart applications in services. (Factbook, 2011.)
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In term of smart living only medical facilities is at high level. The health-sector
shows opportunities for Dutch investment as this is relatively new to the Malaysian
agenda. Dutch expertise on the care of elderly, but also in healthcare-infrastructure, e-
health, and medical tourism can provide new business opportunities.

Education enabled by virtual learning, digitization, and augmented reality can

transform the way we learn. Unbundled, personalized, and blended education will be-
come more prevalent. Guided by rich data and analytics, next-generation teachers can
adapt their techniques to maximize student success. The technological focus will shift
from digital content in the classroom to real-world experiential learning.

Rhode Island’s Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center’s (MET’s)

Big Picture Learning program envisions redesigning K-12 and adult education. MET
students learn outside the classroom with a mentor who is expert in the students’ field
of interest. Through this Learning through Interest (LTI) program, advisors meet with
students and mentors at an LTI site to help students develop real-world projects and
build long-term personal relationships with their mentors, paving the way for lifelong
learning. (Insights, 2018)

London has recognised that the economy is increasingly driven by digital tech-
nology. As such, the city’s Smart London plan declared that extra funding would be
channeled into the educational system to increase uptake of computer science courses.
Additionally, the Greater London Authority conducted an assessment of the impact of
digital exclusion (lack of access to digital services) in 2015, alongside a set of measures
to reduce exclusion. In turn, this has resulted in schemes to increase digital literacy as
well as reducing barriers for getting citizens online.

3 Big Data Analytic

There are five significant elements in Big Data which are volume, velocity, va-
riety, veracity and value (Villanueva et. al, 2014; Chauhan S. et. al, 2016). Big urban
data can be generate by transport and traffic systems, mobility and travel behavior, nat-
ural ecosystem and many more. Growth, proliferation, heterogeneity, complexity,
availability, temporality, changeability and utilization of data across many application
fields can be defined by a term called Big Data (Simon, 2017).

In order to have more understanding, sophisticated and wider data, rapid growth
in big data through knowledge and cities management is important (Kitchin R., 2013).
Further to this, Hejazi H.A. and Rad H.M. (2017) was agreed that developing new plat-
form and tools to store, manage and speed process Big Data are not the limited functions
of Big Data Analytics (BDA).
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3.1 Analytics on Big Data

There are four type of Big Data analytics which are descriptive, diagnostic, pre-
scriptive and predictive analysis. Below figure is the type of Big Data analysis and the
impact towards decision making.

Figure 3.1: Gartner’s studies of how data provide accurate decision making

The term descriptive analytics refers to data and information coherently to de-
scribe business situation where developments, patterns and exceptions becomes evi-
dences in form of reports. It is more focusing on summarizing and reporting data (Jo-
seph and Johnson, 2013 cited in Sivarajah U. et. al, 2016; Jeevan, 2018).
A further definition given by Jeevan (2018) on descriptive analytics emphasized
on why something happen rather than focused on what had happened. Thus, this kind
of analytics are aiming on processes and causes but not entirely on results.
Predictive analytics can be defined as how different data been comprehend to
predict outcomes in future by relying on historical data. The main part of predictive
analytics is to uncover underlying patterns and relationship in data. There are two tech-
niques under predictive analytics which are regression (i.e ordinal regression) and ma-
chine learning techniques (i.e neural network) (Amir Gandomi and Murtaza Haider,
2014).
Meanwhile, prescriptive analytics focused on finding the best actions for a given
situation. In addition, prescriptive analytics is connected with descriptive and predictive
analytics. Given particular parameter, prescriptive analytics can be used to decide for
the best solution or outcome.
Moreover, it can simulate the impacts of each decisions and provide decision
option by analyzing future opportunity by automatically improve new data on predic-
tion accuracy which offer better options regarding decision making (Rouse M., 2012).
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4 Big Data Analytics Application in Smart City

An energy consumption of the smart cities must be fully understand to reduce

the impact of climate change and introduce sustainable development which would
result towards citizen’s benefit. Currently, common smart meter reading had become
one of the data input towards modern smart cities data (Chacon R.P. et. al., 2018).
Ibrahim Abaker et.al. (2016) stated that various sources can contribute to large amount
of data on potential cities. Further to that, emphasize on changes of urban population at
different stages is one of the big data vision to enhance smart cities fundamentally. It is
expected to have an increase in data to build smart city function. Continuous increase
in data can develop data into big dataset and come out with valuable information
insights the collected data.

Figure 4.1: Landscape of the smart city and big data technologies by Ibrahim
Abaker et.al. (2016)

Optimization of system functioning, analysis of pattern and collection and

management of the right data are independently provide more incentive on smart cites
 7

(Chauhan S. et.al. 2017). The important part in developing smart cities is by manag-
ing large input data that had been collected thus analyze it into significant information
that can contribute to city development.
In order to let urgent actions handled smoothly, analysis on real-time data on
smart cities is one of the main challenge. The aim of smart cities is not only to benefit
the government by efficiently reducing cost management but also to benefit citizen by
helping them reducing fuel cost using traffic and route management precisely
(Rathore M.M.et.al., 2016). The most usual methods used are cluster analysis, genetic
algorithms, natural language processing, machine learning, neural networks, predic-
tive modelling, regression models, social network analysis, sentiment analysis, signal
processing and data visualization (Mauro A.D.et.al., 2016).

4.1 Analysis on Mobility of Smart City

Semanjski I. and Gautama S. (2015) discussing on how crowdsourced data in

smart cities mobility can contribute towards personalized mobility services and inter-
action between cities and its transportation system. One of the analysis method on smart
cities mobility is by using gradient boost trees (GBT) method. Under predictive analyt-
ics, GBT is one of the most significant machine learning models. The main objective
of GBT is to predict type of transportation to be used during certain situation like
weather conditions, trip distance and others.
In order to successfully predict using GBT, crowdsourced data have to be ana-
lyze into a model. Jerome H. Friedman have created GBT algorithm to model citizen’s
decision making of transportation mode used.
According to Semanjski I. and Gautama S. (2015), there are certain steps in
modelling which are optimal number of decision trees, predictors importance and clas-
sification matrix. Optimal number of decision trees been used to achieve better model
where as more tree been added into the model, it can help to reduce error and increase
prediction accuracy. Predictor influenced the decision on selection of transportation
mode can be measured using predictor values. To ensure either this model were suc-
cessfully predict the right value, classification matrix were used where correctly clas-
sified and misclassified values can be formed.

4.2 Analysis on Grid of Smart City

The main challenge of Big Data in smart grid application of smart cities are
selection, deployment, monitoring and analysis of aggregated data in real-time (Dia-
mantoulakis P.D. et.al, 2015). To ensure smooth processing of smart grid application,
simulation and modelling, data warehousing and data analytics are important. In addi-
tion, to capture all the useful information from a stream of data, standard process is by
using data mining. However, data mining process concern on employed of algorithms
for discovering shared patterns through the data. One of the data mining methods is
load classification.
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Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is widely used to classify given data point to
as nearly as possible with observed classification. When there is no precise mathemat-
ical model to explain the situation even when there are large number of data to rely on,
ANNs model can be used to evaluate functions. Another algorithms considered to use
is K-mean algorithm where it was based on Euclidean distance between objects. It had
been expressed that the dynamic nature of smart grid is fit well with extended Classifier
System for clusterin (XCSs) since it will surpass the offline schemes in terms of storage
system performance ((Diamantoulakis P.D. et.al, 2015).

4.3 Analysis on Healthcare of Smart City

Proper analytics on smart healthcare can help clinicians to predict epidemics,

cures, diseases and enhance quality of life and avoid sudden death (Ibrahim Abaker
et.al, 2016). Further to this, analysis on healthcare may help clinicians to discover early
pattern or signs of severe illness during early stage thus save hundreds of lives (Roy,
Palappa and Das, 2007 cited in Ibrahim Abaker et.al, 2016).
Currently, there are three major branches which are Intelligent Agents, Machine
Learning and Text Mining to contribute to the promotion of healthcare technologies
(Pramanik M.I. et.al, 2017). Intelligent Agents can be defined as independent software
that connects input with surroundings to accomplish desired goals (Moreno & Garbay,
2003 cited in Pramanik M.I. et.al, 2017). It has been found that health data management,
planning, allocation and decision system are some of major applications of intelligent
agents.
Application of machine learning in biomedical engineering and artificial intelli-
gent literature are contemporarily fit in current times. In addition, machine learning also
used to study heterogenous health data (i.e X-Ray report, ECG report and others).
Moreover, neural network analysis can provide important contribution to the healthcare
even medical data having more complex properties due to conventional healthcare tech-
niques.
Other than that, text mining can be one of the analysis approach to provide useful
information in medical fields. Several group researchers have prepare integrated text-
mining framework. As for example, MedScan system can extract relationship among
different biomedical entities whereas TXGate can achieve gene- based text profiling
and clustering using relevant data existed in multiple biological records (Pramanik M.I.
et.al, 2017).

5 Conclusion

Development of smart cities and Big Data applications are concurrently progress
within time. There will be more dimensions in future that need to be scrutinize to build
smart cities. Further to this, advanced technologies regarding Big Data is expanding
rapidly. This paper has discussed on smart cities components and the analytics used
behind due to large dataset from various sectors. Moreover, this paper also provide
information on type of Big Data Analytics that can be used by each sectors accordingly.
 9

To that end, Big Data Analytics techniques become an important elements in

analyzing large dataset provided by smart cities. However, more studies on Big Data
Analytics for each sectors need to be done as every sectors have different patterns of
data and influencing predictors are vary.

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