An Integrated ICT Based Framework for Smart Sustainable Cities in a Tropical Environment

There is major demographic shift occurring globally, for the first time in human history more people live in cities than in a rural environment. It is estimated that today approximately 50 % of the world’s population lives in an urban environment and this is estimated to grow to up to 70 % by 2050. Tropical are as are an increasingly critical region on the world map, home to more than 40 % of the world’s population and generating about 20 % of global economic output.

Traditional approaches of reducing carbon foot-print of cities include (i) alternative sources of energy, such as solar, (ii) environment friendly living such as recycling, and development of energy efficient equipment and buildings. An integrated approach of managing energy consumption and related sustainable activities within a city with the help of Information & Communications Technologies (ICT) can enable capture of energy and sustainability data at the finest granularity level. This data can be used to develop analytics and to manage the overall sustainable behavior of city.

This paper describes an integrated framework for managing various aspects of cities that would balance / optimize the various complex and conflicting priorities such as safety, security, efficient city services, education, and health care with the objective of reducing overall energy consumption. Information is power. Such information would also enable people and managers of the city to benchmark with other equivalent areas, adopt best practices and develop best of breed sustainable policies.

This paper will examine the role of ICT in a smart eco-city and propose a robust and methodologically sound approach for a sustainable energy efficient eco-city which will tie together the end-user (citizen) experience across the multiple dimensions ranging from healthcare, living, workplace, shopping, education, transport and government above with the internet and its technology backbone infrastructure.