Toward a smart city of interdependent critical infrastructure networks

Abstract

A smart city requires synergistic interaction between several functionally interdependent networks like energy, transportation, water, oil, gas, and emergency services to provide on-demand, reliable services to prosumers. The sustainability of smart city can be guaranteed only through ubiquitous communication and decentralized information exchange between optimization and computational models for the operation, visibility, and control of each constituent network. With the city spanning different societies and jurisdictions, the models must also account for challenges like interoperability, security, latency, resiliency, policymaking, and social behavior. Solutions in the current literature address these challenges in each network exclusively, but the interdependency between them is not properly emphasized. The chapter addresses this gap in research by considering smart city networks with special emphasis on energy, communication, data analytics, and transportation. It introduces each of these networks, identifies state of the art in them and explores open challenges for future research. As its key contribution to the literature, the chapter brings out the interdependencies between these networks through realistic examples and scenarios, identifying the critical need to design, develop, and implement solutions that value such dependencies. Thus, the chapter aims to serve as a starting point for researchers entering the domain of smart city and is interested in conducting cross-functional research across its different interdependent networks.