Study on Interoperability of Urban Information Systems: The Case of Smart St. Petersburg

Abstract

The paper discusses about interoperability mechanisms in the scale of urban IT infrastructure. It represented by a variety of interacting information systems and requirements for complex structural layers that construct urban networks. Government information systems, according to the existing legislation, automate only a certain list of priority functional services, which leads to insufficient flexibility of data exchange framework. They create a unified information space with key tools of interdepartmental interaction processes. Historical incompatibility and heterogeneity of the urban infrastructure elements prevent smart city technologies introduction, that also generating typical problems for interacting systems with each other. The long-term solution to this problem can be provided by changing requirements for technologies and interaction rules: restructuring existing government information systems, reorganizing the interaction of enabled systems, changing the architecture principles of urban infrastructure. And it’s also include the advanced multi-stage study about different infrastructure levels. Based on these systems interoperability research, recommendations for the development of urban information framework are given.