Research Challenges toward the Implementation ofSmart Cities in the United States

A smart city is characterized by its ability to integrate people, technology and information to create an efficient, sustainable and resilient infrastructure that provides high quality services while improving the quality of life of its residents. This report focuses on the three infrastructures: smart classroom buildings, smart bridges and smart bus systems, with the aim of making them smarter in the context of smart cities. The objective is to develop Concepts of Operations (ConOps), from user’s perspective, for smart buildings, smart bridges and smart bus systems, respectively, for smart cities. A smart classroom building is one which makes used of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) to link different systems within a building to deliver useful information to different end users so as to improve the quality of teaching, learning and working experiences. A smart bridge has wireless sensors that automatically monitor the structural and geotechnical health, exchanges real-time data with traffic management center and incorporate traffic and emission impacts in the bridge maintenance decision making process. A smart bus system provides passengers a high quality service by implementing several bus rapid transit features and by the use of ICT to integrate and deliver service information to passengers. This report provides a description of each of the infrastructure systems from the system engineering perspective. Several techniques (Stakeholder Influence Diagram, Context Diagram, and Use Case Diagram) are used to identify relevant stakeholders, define the scope of the system and its external entities, and to identify the smart services provided by the smart classroom buildings, smart bridges and smart bus systems. By applying these systems engineering techniques, the challenges and research opportunities of transforming existing classroom buildings, bridges and regular bus systems into smart classroom buildings, smart bridges, and smart bus systems are identified.