Smart Cities’ Applications to Facilitate the Mobility of Older Adults: A Systematic Review of the Literature

Abstract

This study aimed to identify: (i) the relevant applications based on information technologies and requiring smart cities’ infrastructure to facilitate the mobility of older adults in URBAN SPACES; (ii) the type of data being used by the proposed applications; (iii) the maturity level of these applications; and (iv) the barriers TO their dissemination. An electronic search was conducted on Web of Science, Scopus, and IEEE Xplore databases, combining relevant keywords. Then, titles and abstracts were screened against inclusion and exclusion criteria, and the full texts of the eligible articles were retrieved and screened for inclusion. A total of 28 articles were included. These articles report smart cities’ applications to facilitate the mobility of older adults using different types of sensing devices. The number of included articles is reduced when compared with the total number of articles related to smart cities, which means that the mobility of older adults it is still a not significant topic within the research on smart cities’. Although most of the included studies aimed the implementation of specific applications, these were still in an early stage of development, without the assessment of potential end-users. This is an important research gap since it makes difficult the creation of market-oriented solutions. Another research gap is the integration of knowledge generated by other research topics related to smart cities and smart mobility. Consequently, important issues (e.g., user privacy, data standardization and integration, Internet of Things implementation, and sensors’ characteristics) were poorly addressed by the included studies.

Keywords

• smart city
• older adults
• mobility
• systematic review