Developing a Policy Roadmap for Smart Cities and the Future Internet

Abstract

The FIREBALL project explores the impact of the Future Internet technologies on Smart Cities. This paper proposes a smart cities innovation roadmap framework and recommendations for urban development enabled by future Internet technologies. The roadmap framework aims to support the innovation policies and strategies of cities towards becoming smart. The innovation roadmap is based on a system of innovation perspective, combining views on regimes and niches of novel solutions. These policies concentrate primarily on the management of fundamental layers for achieving a spatial intelligence of cities embedded on future Internet technologies and user-driven innovation ecosystems. 1. Introduction: The Turn to Smart City Strategies Cities and urban areas are complex social ecosystems, where ensuring sustainable development and quality of life are important concerns. In such urban environments, citizens, companies and local governments experience specific needs and demands regarding key themes such as sustainable development, business creation and employment, healthcare, education, energy and the environment, safety, and public services. Increasingly, these domains are enabled and facilitated by broadband networks, Internet- based applications and open platforms. At the same time, the current economic climate forces many cities to cut budgets and set priorities and consequently cities are facing tough challenges to maintain and upgrade ICT infrastructures and innovation policies. This paper explains how the creation of a common roadmap for urban innovation and economic development as enabled by the Future Internet, supported by all stakeholders and addressing agreed priorities, helps finding consensus on common longer term objectives. Future Internet research programs are based on the belief that the current Internet has reached his limits (1). However, there are still open questions such as articulating the various relevant research areas, methods and tools from which new technologies, applications and services will emerge as well as the feasibility to combine technology push and application pull approaches. For research on the Future Internet to benefit not only research communities but also SMEs, citizens and cities it is important to integrate the research and experimentation perspective with the concept of user driven open innovation. The Smart Cities concept, endorsed by the Eurocities community (www.eurocities.eu), is connected to notions of global competiveness, sustainability, empowerment and quality of life, enabled by broadband networks and modern ICTs (3). Its implementation requires the development of migration paths regarding Internet infrastructures, testbed facilities, networked applications, and stakeholder partnerships. Informed by technological opportunities, future development strategies and cost-benefit assessments, cities should