Smart cities survey: Technologies, application domains and challenges for the cities of the future

Abstract

The introduction of the Information and Communication Technologies throughout the last decades has created a trend of providing daily objects with smartness , aiming to make human life more comfortable. The paradigm of Smart Cities arises as a response to the goal of creating the city of the future, where (1) the well-being and rights of their citizens are guaranteed, (2) industry and (3) urban planning is assessed from an environmental and sustainable viewpoint. Smart Cities still face some challenges in their implementation, but gradually more research projects of Smart Cities are funded and executed. Moreover, cities from all around the globe are implementing Smart City features to improve services or the quality of life of their citizens. Through this article, (1) we go through various definitions of Smart Cities in the literature, (2) we review the technologies and methodologies used nowadays, (3) we summarise the different domains of applications where these technologies and methodologies are applied (e.g. health and education), (4) we show the cities that have integrated the Smart City paradigm in their daily functioning and (5) we provide a review of the open research challenges. Finally, we discuss about the future opportunities for Smart Cities and the issues that must be tackled in order to move towards the cities of the future.