On the road towards a smart Urban district supported by a mock platform

Abstract

The world is becoming more and more connected, which is also true for smart cities. The digital transformation is making rapid progress, and part of this are digital ecosystems, consisting of a platform and digital services that support several stakeholders with digital services. In the context of smart cities, we are currently developing a climate-neutral smart urban district and use digital solutions to address topics such as mobility, energy, smart home, and communication among the citizens involved. However, new ideas for services are challenging to invent, develop, and test in our situation, as this particular urban district is currently under construction. This is why we have developed a mock platform, which makes it much easier to evaluate new ideas fast, as qualities of a productive environment such as security or performance are not as highly relevant as an easy-to-use environment. We present details of our mock platform and our experiences in applying it to date. Such a solution is also beneficial for other practitioners and researchers in other smart cities and smart urban districts who are developing a digital ecosystem with new digital services.