Page 38 - U4SSC Blockchain for smart sustainable cities

Table 6: B4C applications in smart living, smart environment and smart mobility 52
Blockchain potential applications for smart living, smart environment and smart mobility

Healthcare services The Blockchain offers new ways to manage public health services built upon
a Token Economy (i.e. reward good behaviour with “tokens”), which would
provide: a more efficient and transparent system; a tool to incentivize desired
behaviours; and the possibility to apply data analytics and artificial intelligence
easily to improve services and healthcare strategies.
Education Blockchain could help in several ways to create a better educational system with
more flexibility, transparency, and adaptation to individual needs. The whole
educational journey could be developed based upon individual needs and
capacities, with the registration of study plans, results, grades and certificates
on blockchain. The data would at the same time be owned and controlled by
the students themselves. A Token Economy could additionally distribute tokens
to the citizens to access lifelong education, both to incentivize specific learning,
as well as to fulfill anybody’s desire to learn.
Social care Blockchain can be useful in the evaluation system for benefit distribution, by
using smart contracts, which would provide fair, fast, efficient and transparent
handling. A Token Economy can also be used for the distribution of tokens for
the payment of different services and products. These can, on the one hand,
be conditional on incentivizing or controlling a specific behaviour and, on the
other hand, they can benefit the receiver as they would be able to pay services
and products with tokens, without the seller or provider knowing that the
social welfare system is funding it. Several countries, among them Australia, are
currently looking into using blockchain for welfare payments.
Mobility and Mobility and transportation are critical services for the efficiency and
transportation productivity of cities, as well as for the quality of life of the citizens. Blockchain
offers interesting solutions to improve transport and mobility. Blockchain would,
for example, provide payment platforms, for services such as tolls, parking,
emissions or transportation, for vehicles and users. Also, it could form a part
of the collection, sharing, and analysis of relevant data to improve mobility.
Blockchain can also be utilized to facilitate the provision of shared services.
In this context, a peer-to-peer, short- term, car-sharing application based on
blockchain technology and smart contracts can support the car-sharing market
as it leads away from centralized database server that could be prone to attacks.
Environment Sustainability and habitability are two of the main targets cities are aiming to
achieve in line with the global sustainable development goals. Actions have to
be taken on a global and local scale, and blockchain can offer a high added-
value. Blockchain is, for example, a perfect platform for supporting the circular
economy due to its ability to track material within their lifecycle or specific
supply chains, where it is currently applied in many cases. It could also be
utilized in applications for the management of air pollution, waste recycling and
water quality registration.

28 U4SSC: Blockchain for smart sustainable cities