Page 39 - Redefining smart city platforms: Setting the stage for Minimal Interoperability Mechanisms - A U4SSC deliverable on city platforms

Hence, a smart city platform is not a massively complex set of software and hardware but rather a
federation of many city platforms that work together seamlessly to help manage the city services
in a holistic and effective way.

Cities and communities will not need to develop such a platform all at once but rather can use
the opportunity of new smart initiatives to develop the relevant parts of that platform in a modular
fashion.

What is important is that each platform that is developed to meet the needs of a specific initiative
is also designed to fit within an overall common framework so that it can become an integral part
of the developing smart city platform.

In short, in order to build a smart city platform, the city needs to:

– Integrate existing platforms so that they can work well together.
– Make sure that new platforms developed to meet some specific priorities are built in a modular
way to enable these new platforms to build towards the overall comprehensive smart city
platform.

– Refer to relevant international standards related to smart city platforms including
Recommendation ITU-T Y.4200 on “Requirements for the interoperability of smart city platforms”
and Recommendation ITU-T Y.4201 on “High-level requirements and reference framework of
smart city platforms”

To do this, they need to put in place an architectural framework that can act as a blueprint for the
work of integration.

5 The requirements needed by the platform enabled ecosystem

There are two key questions cities need to address to ensure that its smart city platform is fit for
enabling a data sharing ecosystem:

– What are the sets of capabilities needed to enable an effective data-sharing ecosystem in a city?

– What are the sets of specifications needed to address each of those sets of capabilities:

• That will ensure that those capabilities are delivered?

• That will allow sufficient flexibility to allow different ways of delivering them – to give freedom
for innovation and competition?

• While, at the same time, ensuring that all possible compliant solutions will be interoperable,
or be easily made interoperable?

The ensuing sub-section will delve into the required sets of capabilities in more detail.

Redefining smart city platforms: Setting the stage for Minimal Interoperability Mechanisms 29