Executive Summary

W3C organized a virtual online workshop on Smart Cities on 25 June 2021. The main goal of the workshop was to improve and finalize the description of the draft Charter for a potential Smart Cities Interest Group so that we can launch the Interest Group and start further discussions on (1) interoperability for Web-based Smart City services and (2) use cases and requirements that W3C specifications need to meet to support Smart City services.

During the workshop discussion, we did the following:

  • Identified Smart Cities standardization stakeholders to drive the development of Web standards aligned with the real needs of Smart Cities
  • Clarified reasonable applications for Smart Cities technologies
  • Saw how to improve the draft Charter for the potential Smart Cities Interest Group for further discussions within that IG

We also confirmed that it would be very important to consider inclusive design including accessibility, privacy, security, and internationalization. Smart City applications are tightly related to the people who live in cities. We want Smart City technology to have a positive impact on their lives and want to avoid unintended negative consequences.

Following the workshop, as a concrete next step, W3C will finalize the draft Charter for a potential Smart Cities Interest Group by clarifying:

  • Technical content that we're going to provide
  • Who are the primary stakeholders participate in the expected Smart Cities IG, who would get benefit from the group's discussion
  • Which are the most appropriate and advanced cities to be involved

Then we'll launch the Interest Group and start further discussion on:

  • Survey on the existing technologies and standards for Smart Cities (Technology Landscape)
  • Best Practices on what technologies, e.g., WoT, Automotive, Geospatial, VR/AR, Speech and Semantic Web, to be applied for what kind of Smart Cities applications, e.g., improved accessibility, visitor guidance and energy management.
  • Use cases and requirements for Smart Cities

For that purpose, we will closely liaise with related SDOs working on Smart Cities, e.g., OGC, ISO, IEC, ISO/IEC JTC1, ITU-T, BSI, ETSI, ECLASS and IETF. Also we'll collaborate with the related existing W3C groups, e.g., Web of Things, Decentralized Identifier, Media & Entertainment, Voice and Solid. In addition, it would be important and useful to outreach to countries and communities directly including developing countries and rural areas. The World Economic Forum, ASEAN and the Smart City Consortium might be good candidates for the outreach.

There are many topics to discuss and the scope of the expected Smart Cities Interest Group may become too broad, but given the discussion during the workshop, probably it would make sense for us to focus on data governance and privacy management for the first year.

Workshop Sessions

The workshop consisted of three separate sessions due to participation from various locations. The format worked very well to let all the speakers and other attendees to participate in the workshop discussion regardless of their timezones. All sessions were recorded.

Each of the three sessions had the following sub-sessions:

  • Scene setting: Goals and expectations for the workshop
  • Use Cases
  • Existing standards
  • Proposals for Web-based approaches
  • Cross-cutting issues for smart cities
  • Wrap-up

During each sub-session above, we specifically talked about the most important requirements for the draft Smart Cities IG Charter. And then at the end of each session, we summarized what we discussed during the workshop. In addition, at the end of the final third session, we confirmed a dedicated discussion group is needed for further discussion and what needs to be added to the draft Smart Cities IG Charter

The summary of each session is available below. Please see also the detailed minutes from the workshop.

Session 1: June 25, 06:00-07:35 UTC

1. Scene setting

The workshop Chairs and the Staff Contact explained the goal and expectation for the workshop was finalizing the proposed IG Charter and asked all the participants to concentrate on the workshop goal.

2. Summary of the current status of Smart Cities - Use cases

We had the following two talks:

Then we held discussion to clarify missing points to be added to the draft Smart Cities IG Charter from use cases viewpoint:

  • Identified SDOs working on Smart Cities to be added to the liaison section of the draft Charter: ISO, IEC, ISO/IEC JTC1, BSI, ETSI.
  • W3C's role within the current global environment to be clarified at the scope section.
  • Need to collect use cases and analyze what to be standardized based on the use cases, and data governance is one of the keys for that purpose.
  • Should consider both the international standards and domestic standards
  • Privacy standards and privacy management is very important, and need to consider who to trust. Also how to represent and compute trust.
  • One possible use case is last-mile connection for public transport services, e.g., from home to train stations, and should consider which areas are to be included.
  • Data interoperability is also important, and some high-level data categorization and schema is recommended to provide consistency of metadata.
  • How to get agreement among various stakeholders within the Smart Cities environment is important. Also need to think about who/how takes the leadership.
  • Various detailed viewpoints for data governance should be considered and some framework is required.

3. Needs and possible solutions for Web-based Smart Cities

We had the following talk:

Then we held discussion to clarify missing points to be added to the draft Smart Cities IG Charter from the viewpoint of the Web-based approach:

  • Should summarize the current situation as a Landscape document of the existing Smart Cities to provide a good overview of what kind of technologies are already available.
  • The expected "Landscape document" should provide a nice overview of the use cases, the technologies and the stakeholders for Smart Cities. Also should explain the basic problems independent of each standard like integration.
  • Should clarify W3C's roles within the Landscape of Smart Cities, e.g., user interfaces and consumption layers for the Smart Cities services to improve the user experience.

4. Cross-cutting issues for Smart Cities

We had the following talk:

Then we held discussion to clarify missing points to be added to the draft Smart Cities IG Charter from the viewpoint of the cross-cutting issues:

  • Need for privacy-aware information management framework was proposed.
  • Here, balance between privacy and usability is important, e.g., geolocation data.
  • Also should remember the existing legal frameworks, e.g., regulations like GDPR.

5. Wrap-up

We summarized missing requirements should be added to the proposed IG Charter:

  • Liaison with international and national SDOs working on Smart Cities should be added to the "4.2 External Organizations" section. Also some more W3C-internal collaborations should be added to the "4.1 W3C Groups" section.
  • Not only data transfer but also combination of data and entity should be considered.
  • Requirements should be discussed based concrete use cases for Smart Cities.
  • Overview and landscape of the existing standards, technologies and systems should be clarified.
  • Balance of usability and privacy protection should be considered, specifically on sensitive information like geolocation and time. Also as a whole mechanism and service as digital infrastructure.
  • Accessibility and data governance for Smart Cities should be also considered.
  • W3C's role within the Smart Cities context should be clarified, e.g., digestible and easy to use interfaces for the Smart Cities services.
  • Also should identify use cases of Smart Cities and see which Web technologies are applicable. Then prioritize the gaps between the use cases and the existing Web technologies including both the browser technologies and other Web technologies.

Session 2: June 25, 12:00-14:10 UTC

1. Scene setting

The workshop Chairs and the Staff Contact explained the goal and expectation for the workshop was finalizing the proposed IG Charter and asked all the participants to concentrate on the workshop goal.

2. Summary of the current status of Smart Cities - Use cases

We had the following two talks:

Then we held discussion to clarify missing points to be added to the draft Smart Cities IG Charter from use cases viewpoint:

  • Digital Twins in Smart Cities are even more complicated than ordinary IoT contexts due to the role of space and time information, e.g., the balance between social and physical should be considered.
  • Digital transformation is impacting various industries including publishing industry and music industry, so we should look into the pros and cons of both the physical services and digital services to revive the physical industries using the Web technology. For that purpose, We should consider use cases on retail services including both the physical ones and digital ones.
  • Geospatial information is critical. However, the target is not only the physical space but also the digital space. So we need a social model for spacial information which could be applied to both the physical space and the digital space.
  • We should clarify the role of the Web technology including both the Web browser technology and the WoT technology in that context as well.

3. Summary of the current status of Smart Cities - Existing standards

We had the following talk:

Then we held discussion to clarify missing points to be added to the draft Smart Cities IG Charter from the viewpoint of existing standards related to Smart Cities:

  • Interoperability of data definition for various industries is important, and we should collaborate with data defining SDOs including ECLASS, IEC CDD and ISO TC184/SC4.
  • Also we should think about the trust for data management and possible mechanisms to guarantee the trust like Solid.

4. Needs and possible solutions for Web-based Smart Cities

We had the following talks:

Then we held discussion to clarify missing points to be added to the draft Smart Cities IG Charter from the viewpoint of Web-based Smart Cities approach:

  • WoT already has use cases for Smart Cities, e.g., visitor guidance, energy management and health/retail services, and we should avoid reinvention for IoT purposes.
  • There are a lot of issues with personal data management within the context of Smart Cities.
  • Discovery of services is on of the key things, and geolocation information is important for physical services. However, latitude-longitude information is not the only representation of space, and there are difference conceptions of space, e.g., neighborhoods.
  • Human-centric view and social interaction should be considered and need to solve communication problems as well.
  • Data governance for Smart Cities should be also clarified within the Web-based approach as well.
  • For that purpose, we should consider various use cases including multiple industry domains within a Smart City, e.g., parking and fire services, and think about who organizes and manages which part of the data transfer.
  • There are already existing standards for data communication and data representation, so we should liaise with SDOs and research projects working on those standards and mechanisms, e.g., around New York, Boston and Toronto.
  • For system implementation, we should consider reusing the existing stable mechanisms and avoid generating unnecessary new codes.
  • Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is already listed at the "4.2 External Organizations" but we should think about even stronger collaboration about various viewpoints including GeoPose.
  • Many of the possible technical components are already done by W3C, e.g., RDF, OWL, SHACL, ODRL and WoT. On the other hand actual vocabulary definition is done outside W3C, e.g., SAREF ontology by ETSI. So we should work with those related SDOs to see how to integrate necessary components for Web-based Smart Cities.

5. Cross-cutting issues for Smart Cities

We had the following talk:

Then we held discussion to clarify missing points to be added to the draft Smart Cities IG Charter from the viewpoint of cross cutting issues for Smart Cities:

  • Intelligent and conversational interfaces should be provided for visitors of Smart Cities to guarantee interoperability between multiple systems and accessibility.
  • AR/VR interfaces may be useful as well as speech interface, but we need to note that different people will need different types and modalities of interfaces depending on their own situation. Icon-based approach might be a good starting point.
  • Different cities have different priority, and we should consider issues with Smart Cities in developing countries too.
  • We should add Voice Interaction CG to the "4.1 W3C Groups", and Open Voice Network to the "4.2 External Organizations" for liaison purposes.

6. Wrap-up

We confirmed all the missing requirements that should be added to the proposed IG Charter from this session had been already clarified during the discussion above.

Session 3: June 26, 01:00-02:25 UTC

1. Scene setting

The workshop Chairs and the Staff Contact explained the goal and expectation for the workshop was finalizing the proposed IG Charter and asked all the participants to concentrate on the workshop goal.

2. Summary of the current status of Smart Cities - Existing standards

We had the following talk:

Then we held discussion to clarify missing points to be added to the draft Smart Cities IG Charter from the viewpoint of existing standards related to Smart Cities:

  • There is a governmental project in Brazil on a model for sustainable Smart Cities based on the ITU-T standards. The ITU-T standards are extended to fit Latin American countries due to the quality of Internet connection, etc.
  • We should consider liaison with related SDOs like ITU-T and ISO, and also think about how to apply existing standards to various countries including developing countries. In addition, we should consider the difference between cities, countries and cultures.
  • We should focus on not only the cities as a whole but the people who live in the cities to see efficient quality of public services. For that purpose, we should survey best practices and existing standards for adaptation for various countries and regions including developing countries and rural areas.
  • We should work with regional Smart Cities groups like ASEAN in Asia as well as SDOs like ITU-T, ISO and ISO/IEC JTC1.
  • Also we should be careful about the fact tat people working on public services in Smart Cities and potential Smart Cities might not have enough technical expertise. So some kind of education/training to see the priorities based on each country's situation would be important.
  • Specifically with the COVID situation, network connection is very important infrastructure for Smart Cities. So we should think about the impact of the current situation to each country/region as well. For example, TV broadcasting could be a possible solution for education and training, but it's not really available to everybody.
  • We should consider several layers of mechanism including hardware, middleware and the network (=Internet). Even though the lower part of the mechanism is out of W3C's standardization scope, we should gather information about what is missing at what layer and what we could do to improve the situation as a "Landscape of Smart Cities".
  • For that purpose, further and deeper collaboration within W3C, e.g., including the Media and Entertainment Interest Group on media streaming and TV services on the Web, would be useful and needed.
  • We should collect information and requirements based discussions with not only the governments but also the communities of people and standardization groups to see the actual needs for smart cities. Also we should describe the motivation of doing standardization for Smart Cities to convince important stakeholders and involve them.
  • We need some mechanism for outreach to the important stakeholders, and the W3C Chapter mechanism could be used for that purpose.

3. Cross-cutting issues for Smart Cities

We had the following talks:

Then we held discussion to clarify missing points to be added to the draft Smart Cities IG Charter from the viewpoint of cross cutting issues for Smart Cities:

  • Applying AI technology to IoT purpose would be useful for smoother deployment. We could use intelligent voice and facial recognition for authentication purposes as well as accessibility.
  • Regarding the management of access rights, we should collaborate with related W3C groups including the DID WG, the Web Authentication WG and the Solid Community Group.
  • As the Wikipedia's Smart City article also describes, there are various PROs and CONs for Smart Cities, and there are some criticisms about privacy management, e.g., high level of big data collection and analytics.
  • For actual Smart City services, we need to think about how to manage and govern our own data. There are too many stakeholders within the Smart Cities environment, but we should be careful to be user-centric, and consider how to manage the data transfer among all the stakeholders including ourselves.
  • For that purpose, we need to identify what should be done within the complicated environment based on concrete use cases and requirements with our own situations.

4. Wrap-up

We quickly reviewed all the discussion about important requirements that should be added to the draft Smart Cities IG Charter:

  • We got suggestions to accommodate for various existing technologies to provide Smart City services, e.g., IoT, AI, AR/VR, speech, Geospatial and Semantic Web.
  • We've confirmed security, privacy, accessibility and internationalization (including different cultures and policies depending on the regions) are important for Smart Cities. And we should be careful to be user-centric always. The current draft Smart Cities Interest Group Charter is very tech-oriented, so we should consider making it a bit more human-oriented based on the discussion during this workshop, e.g., support for socialization, social interactions, viewpoint of not only hardware and devices but also media and contents for people.
  • We've identified expanded liaisons with other SDOs, e.g., OGC, ISO, IEC, ISO/IEC JTC1, ITU-T, ETSI and ECLASS. Also saw the importance of further and deeper collaboration with the existing W3C groups, e.g., WoT, DID, ME, Voice and Solid. In addition, it would be important and useful to outreach to countries and communities directly including developing countries and rural areas. The World Economic Forum, ASEAN and the Smart City Consortium might be good candidates for the outreach. Our challenge here is how to prioritize all the candidates. We could use the W3C Chapter mechanism for the outreach purposes.

5. Next steps

  • The main goal of the workshop was gathering input and improving the draft Smart Cities Interest Group Charter.
  • As a consequence of the workshop discussion, we got a consensus that we should start actual discussion on the expected use cases and requirements for Web-based Smart Cities based on broader discussions with various stakeholders from various areas, and should generate a dedicated discussion group within W3C.
  • We've identified topics and important viewpoints for the Scope section of the draft Smart Cities Interest Group Charter, including data governance, smart cities in developing countries, and a survey of existing smart cities.
  • We also identified important additional SDOs, Government agencies, Smart City projects and communities to liaise with and potential liaison contacts from those organizations as the workshop speakers, including Josh Lieberman (OGC), Heng Qian (ISO/IEC JTC1), Peter Lee (BSI), Jerome Blum (ECLASS), Sisay Chala (GOEASY), Jacqueline Lu (DTPR), Dave McComb (semantic arts), and Clarissa Loureiro (Clarissa Loureiro).
  • We will finalize the draft Smart Cities Interest Group Charter based on the feedback from the workshop, and launch the group to start further discussion on the use cases and requirements for Smart Cities in addition to doing a survey of existing technologies and standards for Smart Cities.