This dissertation aims to understand the mechanisms behind the adoption of smart cities technologies (SCT) and how they can promote social equity in local communities in the United States. There is a distinct lack of empirical research addressing the methods designed for the promotion of social equity despite their numerous benefits. The present study will address this omission in the scholarship by providing evidence-based insights on how public administrators can leverage SCT to promote distributional social equity through the Digital Era Governance (DEG) and Adoption Theory frameworks. This study also demonstrates the efficacy of applying the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to understand better the mechanism leading to the acceptance and adoption of SCT in the United States. Lastly, it provides insightful evidence demonstrating the value of these approaches and their influence on policymakers’ decisions using SCT to address one of society’s most challenging issues, fostering social equity. It utilizes data from the ICMA’s 2016 Smart Cities Survey, the 2015 Sustainability Practices Survey, and the U.S. Census Bureau. The study employs logistic and negative binomial regressions to examine the factors influencing commitment to using SCT, engagement with SCT, and distributional social equity. The findings indicate that factors such as ‘perceived usefulness’ and ‘ease of use’ influence commitment to SCT usage, which impacts SCT engagement, leading to social equity outcomes

[pt] O número de Cidades Inteligentes no mundo está crescendo muito rapidamente, e não há indicação de que em breve haverá uma diminuição nesse crescimento, isso porque uma Cidade Inteligente ajuda seus gestores e habitantes a desfrutarem de seus recursos e gerenciarem vários de seus aspectos. Os administradores da cidade estão instalando sensores e atuadores em diferentes partes da cidade para coletar dados e reagir em tempo real às mudanças esperadas. Cabe aos programadores de computadores projetarem sistemas computacionais capazes de processar todos esses dados e disponibilizá-los como informações aos habitantes e administradores de forma organizada. Para permitir que os programadores investiguem o comportamento das aplicações antes de sua implementação na cidade, desenvolvemos um testbed de três camadas que ajuda os programadores a analisar o desempenho em um ambiente controlado que também pode ser usado para implementação. O testbed permite que os desenvolvedores distribuam o processamento, incluindo fluxos de eventos/dados complexos, na nuvem, névoa ou borda. Embora a arquitetura do testbed seja independente de plataformas, nós implementamos uma versão de referência utilizando softwares gratuitos. Todos os componentes utilizados na versão de referência foram avaliados individualmente por seus desenvolvedores, mas para verificar a escalabilidade da integração, nós desenvolvemos várias aplicações para avaliar o comportamento da arquitetura. Nós também desenvolvemos quatro aplicativos para coleta e processamento de dados IoT para ilustrar como o testbed pode guiar os programadores na escolha da melhor forma de implementar suas aplicações. Baseado no comportamento das aplicações desenvolvidas, nós criamos uma taxonomia para classificar as aplicações para cidades inteligentes de acordo com as suas características e possibilidades de distribuição para auxiliar ao desenvolvedor a implementar a sua aplicação. / [en] The number of Smart Cities in the world is growing very fast, and there is no indication that there will be a decrease in this growth soon, because a Smart City helps its managers and inhabitants to enjoy its resources and manage several of its aspects. City administrators are installing sensors and actuators in different parts of the city to collect data and react in real time to expected changes. It is up to computer programmers to design computer systems capable of processing all this data and making it available to inhabitants and administrators as information in an organized manner. To allow programmers to investigate the behavior of applications before they are deployed in the city, we have developed a three-layer testbed that helps programmers analyze performance in a controlled environment that can also be used for implementation. The testbed allows developers to distribute processing, including complex event/data streams, in the cloud, fog or edge. Although the testbed architecture is platform independent, we have implemented a reference version using free software. All the components used in the reference version were evaluated individually by their developers, but to verify the scalability of the integration, we developed several applications to evaluate the behavior of the architecture. Four applications for collecting and processing IoT data have been developed to illustrate how the testbed can guide programmers in choosing the best way to implement their applications. Based on the behavior of the developed applications, we created a taxonomy to classify applications for smart cities according to their characteristics and distribution possibilities to help the developer to implement their application.

Antalet vägtrafikanter ökar varje år, och med det ökar trängseln. För att bekämpa detta har undersökningar gjorts på uppkoppling av infrastruktur och användning av sensorer. Sensorer kan användas för att minska trafikköer, genom att till exempel upptäcka stillastående fordon eller föremål på vägen. Detta examensarbete undersöker konceptuellt hur en Light Detection and Ranging-sensor kan användas för att detektera ett hindrat trafikflöde på väg. En prototyp skapas för att undersöka konceptet, som består av en datainsamlingsmodul och en detekteringsapplikation. Genom att jämföra olika insamlad data, avgörs det om trafikflödet är hindrat eller ej. För att möjliggöra detekteringen av trafikflöde nyttjas en servomotor vilket ger datainsamlingsmodulen möjligheten att mäta punkter i ett tvådimensionellt plan. Styrning av motor och insamling av data sker med hjälp av en Arduino Uno. Data behandlas sedan på en persondator för att avgöra om hinder uppstått. Resultaten från tester i olika testmiljöer visar på att datainsamlingsmodul med detekteringsapplikation kan detekterar hindrat trafikflöde och statisk miljö, och med en godtagbar noggrannhet i avståndsmätningarna. Slutsatsen är således att prototypen har duglig funktion för att detektera ett hindrat trafikflöde. Metoderna för att detektera hinder är rudimentära men fungerande för enkla trafikflöden. Testning av mer varierande trafik under längre tidsperioder krävs för att ytterligare verifiera konceptets lämplighet. / The number of urban dwellers is increasing, and as a result traffic congestion increases. To combat this, investigations to connect infrastructure are being done, and the use of several different sensors are relevant to this study. Sensors can be used to reduce traffic congestion, for example by detecting stationary vehicles or objects on the road. This graduate work examines the concept of how a Light Detection and Ranging sensor can be used to detect any obstructed traffic flow on roads. A prototype is created to examine the concept, which consists of a data acquisition module and a detection application. By comparing varying collected data, it is determined if traffic flow is obstructed or not. To enable the detection of traffic flow, a servo motor is used to provide the data acquisition module with the ability to measure points in a two-dimensional plane. Control of motor and data collection is done by an Arduino Uno. Data is processed on a personal computer to determine if any obstruction has occurred. The results of the tests in different test environments indicate that the data acquisition module with the detection application can detect blocked traffic flow and static environment, and with an acceptable accuracy in the distance measurements. The conclusion is that the prototype is capable of detecting a blocked traffic flow. The methods for detecting obstacles are rudimentary but effective for simple traffic flows. Testing more varied traffic for longer periods of time is required to further verify the feasibility of the concept

This thesis aims to give insight into a novel approach for quantifying car traffic in developing cities. This is necessary to improve efficiency in resource allocation for improvements in infrastructure. The project took form of a case study of neighborhoods in the city of Nairobi, Kenya. The approach consists of a method which relies on topics from the field of Topological Data Analysis, together with the use of large data sources from taxi services in the city. With this, both qualitative and quantitative insight can be given about the traffic. The method was proven useful for understanding how traffic spreads, and to differentiate between levels of congestion: quantifying it. However, it failed to detect the effect of previous improvements of infrastructure. / Målet med rapporten är att ge insikt i en innovativ ansats för att kvantifiera biltrafik i utvecklingsstäder. Detta kommer som en nödvändighet för att kunna förbättra resursfördelning i utvecklandet av infrastruktur. Projektet utspelade sig som en fallstudie där stadsdelar i Nairobi, Kenya studerades. Ansatsen innefattar en metod som bygger på tekniker från topologisk dataanalys (eng. \textit{Topological Data Analysis}), tillsammans med stora datakällor från taxitjänster i staden. Detta hoppas ge både kvalitativ och kvantitativ information om trafiken i staden. Metoden visade sig vara användbar för att förstå hur trafik sprider sig och att differentiera mellan nivåer av trafik, alltså att kvantifiera den. Tyvärr så misslyckades metoden visa sig användbar för att mäta förbättringar i infrastruktur.

Modern cities must overcome complex challenges to achieve socio-economic development and to improve the quality of life as the urban population is rapidly increasing. The concept of smart citie s is a response to these challenges. Thus, emerging technologies that are key enablers for the development of a smart city are said to be IoT and 5G. To deploy such technologies , however, may be expensive and requires the involvement of multiple actors. Hence, lack of cooperation and coordination for planning, financing, deploying and managing the city’s operational networks makes it even more difficult to overcome such challenges. Further, waste management companies and parking services operators in a city have expensive operation costs and services inefficiency due to little utilization of IoT-based solutions. This paper identifies and analyzes smart city ecosyst e ms, value networks, actors, actor’s roles, and business models in order to illustrate business relationships and provide business opportunities in the development of smart and sustainable cities through cooperation and collaboration among involved actors . Target actors that this study focuse s are on Mobile Network Operators, Parking Services Operators, and Waste Management Companies, and uses smart parking and smart waste collection as use-cases. Results show several cooperative business scenarios that can lead to successful business relationships and opportunities. / Moderna städer måste komma över komplexa utmaningar för att åstadkomma social ekonomisk utveckling och förbättra livskvalitén då stadsbefolkningen ständigt ökar. Konceptet smarta städe r är svaret på dessa utmaningar. Således, teknologier som sägs vara nyckelfaktorer i denna utveckling sägs vara IoT och 5G. För att distribuera dessa tekniker, kan bli dyrt och påverkar många aktörer. Därav, brist i samarbete och koordinering av planering, finansiering, distribuering och kontrollen utav sta dens operativa nätverk gör det ännu svårare att komma över dessa utmaningar. Ytligare, avfallshanterings företag och parkeringsbolag i staden har dyra driftkostnader och ineffektiv service på grund av bristande användning av IoT-baserade lösningar. Denna rapport identifiera och analyserar smarta städers ekosystem, värdet av nätverket, aktörer och dess roller samt affärsmodeller för att illustrera affärsrelationer och erbjuda affärsmöjligheter i utveckling av smarta och hållbara städer genom samarbete mellan berörda aktörer. Studien fokuserar på mobila nätverks operatörer, parkingsbolag, avfallshanteringsbolag och använder smart parkering och smart avfallshantering som användningsområden. Resultatet visar olika affärs samarbetsmöjligheter som kan leda till lönsamma affärsrelationer och möjligheter.

[pt] As cidades contemporâneas, cuja população está em tendência de crescimento, são palco dos desafios do presente, como as mudanças climáticas, o acesso a alimentos, os desastres ambientais, o consumo de energia e emissão de gases poluentes, a violência, a desigualdade social, entre outros. A solução desses problemas é complexa e necessita o envolvimento de múltiplos atores e o investimento de volumosos recursos financeiros. Com atenção a isso, surge o ideal da cidade inteligente, que busca utilizar as tecnologias da informação e comunicação para diagnosticar e enfrentar problemas urbanos a partir da coleta e uso de dados sobre a cidade e os cidadãos. Se, por um lado, a tecnologia pode e deve ser utilizada para a melhoria da qualidade de vida, por outro lado, o seu uso traz dúvidas sobre a violação da privacidade dos cidadãos. Por estes motivos, a presente pesquisa objetiva estudar de que forma é possível realizar as promessas da cidade inteligente sem que isso signifique a expansão da vigilância e a sistematização da violação às leis de proteção de dados. Para isso, o trabalho irá: estudar as definições do conceito de cidade inteligente, abordar os desafios para a proteção de dados neste contexto e propor medidas que mitiguem os danos à privacidade dos cidadãos. / [en] Contemporary cities, whose population is on a growing trend, are the main stage for the challenges of the present, such as climate change, access to food, environmental disasters, energy consumption and the emission of greenhouse gases, violence, social inequality, among others. The solution of these problems is complex, requiring the involvement of multiple actors and the investment of voluminous financial resources. With this in mind, the ideal of the smart city emerges, seeking to use information and communication technologies to diagnose and address urban problems by collecting and processing data about the city and its citizens. If, on the one hand, technology can and should be used to improve the quality of life, on the other hand, its use raises doubts about the violation of citizens privacy. For these reasons, the present research aims to study how it is possible to fulfill the promises of the smart city without this meaning the expansion of surveillance and the systematization of violations of data protection laws. For this, the work will: study the definitions of smart city, address the challenges for data protection in this context and propose measures that mitigate the damages to the privacy of urban citizens.

The concept of smart cities, which may have seemed distant and unachievable not very long ago, is becoming reality today. Behind the concept of a smart city lies a vast intelligence, namely the Internet of Things. As the population in urban areas grows, the development of smart parking solutions are becoming more relevant and crucial than ever. One of the biggest concerns regarding todays’ way of parking is congestion. Drivers’ are cruising around in search of a parking space which is both time consuming and causes big congestion. In this thesis project, a comparative analysis was conducted between two parking operators in Sweden, EasyPark and LinPark. A qualitative study in the forms of interviews and a literature study was conducted to further investigate and analyse technologies and methods used in smart parking today. The problems that this thesis focuses on are congestion due to poor parking management as well as the smartphone dependency regarding the management of a parking space. Highlighted in this report are key technologies used to track the parking occupancy status, the impact connected vehicles might have on the smart parking industry, as well as how smart parking solutions could help to decrease congestion. The results of this thesis project showed that there are several solutions that could significantly decrease traffic congestion. By aiding the drivers to a parking space, or allowing the driver to pre-book a parking space, the efficiency with regards to time and congestion could be improved. Furthermore, the establishment of electrical and connected vehicles seem to have a crucial impact on the smart parking industry. Parking applications need to adjust their services to be compatible with both types of vehicles. Even though there seem to be many new technologies available and developed, they may not be able to be implemented in the near future. That is why it is important for parking applications to provide a sufficient service with the technology available today. With regards to this, a feature addition was suggested where users are able to filter their search for certain parking spaces, such as filtering by the cheapest or closest parking space. Lastly, a feature for connected vehicles was suggested where the car is able to detect and track which parking operators are operating certain parking spaces. / Begreppet smarta städer, som må ha verkat ouppnåeligt för inte så länge sedan, blir verklighet idag. Bakom begreppet “smart cities” ligger en stor intelligens, nämligen “Internet of Things”, sakernas internet. När befolkningen i städer växer, blir utvecklingen av smarta parkeringslösningar mer relevant och avgörande än någonsin. Ett av de största bekymret för dagens parkeringssätt är trafikstockningar. Förarna åker runt på jakt efter en parkeringsplats vilket både är tidskrävande och bidrar till ytterligare trafikstockningar. I detta examensarbete genomfördes en komparativ analys mellan två parkeringsoperatörer i Sverige, EasyPark och LinPark. En kvalitativ studie i form av intervjuer och en litteraturstudie genomfördes för att ytterligare undersöka och analysera tekniker och metoder som används inom smart parkering idag. De viktigaste problemen som denna avhandling fokuserar på är trängsel på grund av ineffektiva parkeringsåtgärder samt smartphoneberoendet gällande hanteringen av en parkeringsplats. I denna rapport framhålls viktiga teknologier som används för att spåra status för parkeringsplatser, den påverkan anslutna fordon kan ha på smart parking industrin, samt hur smarta parkeringslösningar kan bidra till att minska trängseln. Resultaten av detta examensarbete visade att det finns flera lösningar som kan minska trafikstockningar avsevärt. Genom att guida förare till en parkeringsplats, eller genom att låta föraren förhandsboka en parkeringsplats, kan effektiviteten när det gäller tid och trängsel förbättras. Dessutom verkar etablering av elektriska och anslutna fordon ha en avgörande inverkan på smart parking industrin. Parkeringsapplikationer måste anpassa sina tjänster så att de är kompatibla med alla olika typer av fordon. Även om det verkar finnas många nya teknologier tillgängliga och utvecklade, är de inte implementerbara inom en snar framtid. Det är därför det är viktigt för parkeringsapplikationer att tillhandahålla en tillräckligt effektiv tjänst med den teknik som finns tillgänglig idag. Ett funktionstillägg föreslogs, där användare kan filtrera sin sökning efter vissa typer av parkeringsplatser, till exempel filtrering efter den billigaste eller närmaste parkeringsplatsen. Slutligen föreslogs en funktion för anslutna fordon där bilen kan upptäcka och spåra vilka parkeringsoperatörer som driver vissa parkeringsplatser.

The promise of smart cities to deliver new urban efficiencies and optimizations for sustainability is increasingly being questioned for its anthropocentric, universal, and top-down perspectives. Framingcities as computers has been critiqued for its limiting understanding of cities, as well as its lack of dealing with the complexities of real messy cities, with diverse knowledge and lived experiences. However, smart technologies have also been highlighted as having the potential to help us better understand more-than-human perspectives and to reconnect us to the world around us. Situated in thefield of design for social innovation, this thesis contributes to the emerging body of work that is exploring how digital urban environments can include local knowledge and more-than-human perspectives. In a co-design process with the urban agriculture community of Sjöbergen in the city of Gothenburg in Sweden, this thesis explores how local knowledge and values about- and in urban nature can help us think differently about the future of sustainable smart city concepts. With a design process guided by research through design and co-design, this thesis is imagining other smart city narratives that go away from the current top-down and universal perspectives and instead are inspired by values of Sjöbergen of reuse, maintenance, collectivity, and knowledge sharing. The design contribution of this work is a design proposal of a smart city service that reuses old smartphones of citizens into smart city technologies for individual and situated purposes. The design proposal aims to show an alternative view of smart cities grounded in local values and more-than-human perspectives.

[pt] Em termos de novas tecnologias de policiamento e prevenção da violência urbana, a China é uma referência global. São novas tecnologias digitais advindas da Quarta Revolução Industrial, como IA e Big Data, que resolveriam desde desigualdades sociais a déficits em infraestrutura urbana. A China, por meio de projetos de cidades inteligentes, planeja liderar a revolução digital para se tornar exemplo de sociedade avançada e inteligente. Pretende com isso não só implementar esse projeto domesticamente, mas também exportá-lo como modelo de desenvolvimento baseado em inovação e tecnologia. No entanto, há resistências a esse modelo, visto pelos EUA e boa parte de seus aliados como estratégia da China para ascender globalmente, mas de forma predatória e autoritária, ao estabelecer novos padrões de dependência externa via comércio, investimento e tecnologia. A China, como nova potência digital, também representaria uma ameaça ao tentar replicar sistemas de controle social e vigilância em massa por meio de seus sistemas de vigilância pública e reconhecimento facial. Uma vez que a China vem firmando parcerias estratégicas pelo mundo, é preciso que empresas e governos tenham uma posição clara diante de uma eventual reconfiguração global e estejam preparados para o desafio de se adaptar à revolução digital, levando em conta os impactos que o modelo chinês poderá causar, não só em termos de oportunidades, mas também de custo-benefício e riscos socioeconômicos, em virtude de especificidades locais, crises históricas e problemas estruturais. / [en] In terms of new technologies for policing and prevention of urban violence, China is a global benchmark. These are new digital technologies from the Fourth Industrial Revolution, such as AI e Big Data, which would solve from social inequalities to deficits in urban infrastructure. China, through smart cities projects, plans to lead the digital revolution to become an example of prosperous and intelligent society. It intends not only to implement this project domestically, but also to export it as a development model based on innovation and technology. However, there are resistance to this model, seen by the US and many of its allies as China s strategy to move globally, but in a predatory and authoritarian way, by establishing new patterns of external dependence through trade, investment and technology. China, as a new digital power, would also be a threat in attempting to replicate social control and mass surveillance systems through its public surveillance and facial recognition systems. Once China has been closing strategic partnerships around the world, firms and governments need to have a clear position in the face of a possible global reconfiguration and be prepared for the challenge of adapting itselves to the digital revolution, taking into account the impacts that the Chinese model can cause not only in terms of opportunities, but also cost-benefit and socioeconomic risks, due to local specificities, historical crises and structural problems.

This research aims to make the first step in the direction of creating guidelines to use for building an instrument capable to collect information about citizens’ emotional reaction toward their city.Through the use of an existing mobile application meant to collect data about one’s own emotions I tried to evaluated the availability of people in sharing how they feel.Later on, based on the evaluations of this app, I created two subsequent analog prototypes that can be placed in urban spaces to collect people’s place related emotions. The devices have been used both inside the university and in open urban spaces in Malmö. Using the experiences made with these prototypes, concerning the availability of people in sharing their emotions about spaces, this thesis is used to develop guidelines and design opportunities for further development of interactive street furniture designed to collect place related emotions.