A review of standards for Smart Cities Yannis Charalabidis University of the Aegean, Greece Digital Governance Research Centre W3C/SHAREPSI 2.0 Workshop 25 th November 2015, Berlin
Introduction As the Smart Cities movement progresses around the globe, a common question arises: Are there any standards for Smart Cities? After observing the scarcity of answers to this question, in several relevant workshops and meetings, this presentation tries to make a comprehensive sum of what has come to my attention lately. Several standards and standardization attempts are presented, all coming from well known international organisations. 6 of them (from ISO, ITU and BSI) are presented in detail.
1. The ISO 37120 standard The ISO 37120 Standard is titled Sustainable development of communities -- Indicators for city services and quality of life The standard presents a set of (around 100) indicators to measure the performance of city services and quality of life. The standard is applicable to any city, municipality or local government that wants to measure its performance, in a comparable and verifiable manner, irrespective of size and location. The standard is available at the ISO web site (at a price). A free summary can be obtained here (ISO preview facility) My view: a very good start for measuring your smart city initiatives. But, some indicators are quite indirect and maybe difficult to gather. No real assessment of ICT infrastructures.
2. The ISO/DIS 37101 This is a standard in draft status (DIS), published in September 2015. The standard, titled Sustainable development of communities -- Management systems - Requirements with guidance for resilience and smartness, presents the main axes of activities for a smart city. The draft standard is available at a cost from the ISO web site. A free preview can be obtained here. My view: very helpful information on how to plan, manage and evaluate a smart city initiative. Also includes the 10 main areas of smart city intervention types (e.g. health, energy, environment, etc). More like a guideline than a standard though. Similar information contained in several relevant papers or studies.
3. The ITU Technical Specification on Smart Sustainable Cities The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Focus Group on Smart Sustainable Cities (FG- SCC) published the technical specification Key performance indicators related to the sustainability impacts of information and communication technology in smart sustainable cities, on March 2015 The technical specification is much like the ISO 37120 standard, adopting some of its provisions on suggested metrics. ITU specification is generally narrower than ISO, going deeper on some ICT issues. The specification is available free of charge, here (doc format, at the ITU website). My view: a valuable resource, open and reusable, able to shed some light in the ICT-related issues of a smart city. Of course, measurement indicators are the target / not a cookbook of practices.
4. The ITU Technical Report on Smart Sustainable Cities The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Focus Group on Smart Sustainable Cities (FG- SCC) published the technical report An overview of smart sustainable cities and the role of information and communication technologies, in 2014 The 40-pages long technical report is a well-structured description of the smart city concept, trying to describe the intervention areas and some relevant ICT enablers. The technical report is available free of charge, here (doc format, at the ITU website). My view: a rather comprehensive but introductory resource. Valuable as a training material / guide, will not enlighten the expert. Although it contains some example technologies, it fails short from an all-inclusive map of smart cities technologies.
5. BSI PAS 181 The British Standards Institute (BSI) has published the PAS 181 Smart city framework Guide to establishing strategies for smart cities and communities as a practical guide for smart city development, in 2014 The document contains a 12-areas map for smart cities (e.g. energy, water, waste, etc) and a comprehensive action framework for planning and managing smart city interventions. The document is available for free download here, or as paperback at a price. My view: one of the best all-around documents for smart city design and development. I definitely use the actions framework in my lectures towards municipality staff. Yet, not an allinclusive list of interventions with a model on how to choose, but still one of the best quality material out there.
6. BSI PAS 182 The BSI PAS 182 Smart city concept model. Guide to establishing a model for data interoperability is aimed to be a practical guide for tackling the data-related challenges of Smart Cities, published in 2014 The document describes a preliminary data model, to describe several aspects of smart cities, including indicators, actors, infrastructure and other information elements. actors, contains a 12-areas map for smart cities (e.g. energy, water, waste, etc) and a comprehensive action framework for planning and managing smart city interventions. The document is available for free download here, or as paperback at a price. My view: although can be of some use, as an indicative catalogue of data elements for (smart) cities, it fails very short from the target of achieving interoperability. For that, much more are needed at the ontological and semantic level (e.g. controlled vocabularies, extended metadata schemas, core components, etc) that can however be adopted by standardization documents like the National Interoperability Frameworks.
Other standards Other relevant standardization attempts for Smart Cities are the following documents, from BIS and ISO: BIS Smart city terminology (PAS 180) BIS Smart city overview document (PD 8100) BIS Smart city planning guidelines document (PD 8101) Research on smart infrastructure projects (PD ISO/TR 37150) A specification for KPIs for smart infrastructure projects (PD ISO/TS 37151)
Conclusions and further work During the last 18 months, smart cities standardization has done some noticeable steps, providing a handful of documents for several smart city aspects The metrics aspect appears to be the more progressed in documentation, although ICT indicators and municipality-internal elements do not have the proper attention, yet. An all-inclusive map of possible interventions is still missing, which is more the work of researchers than standardization bodies.