Page 50 - Redefining smart city platforms: Setting the stage for Minimal Interoperability Mechanisms - A U4SSC deliverable on city platforms

platforms and foster further innovations and evolution. These specifications should also ensure
that the platforms can:

– extend to a “system of systems” with all relevant digital means of a community;

– scale to the needs of the cities and communities; and
– guarantee privacy and security by design, making the platforms trustworthy.

Open-source development and the involvement of communities are powerful methods to guarantee
transparency, and consequently trust, in the platforms for public operators. This particular aspect
will be particularly relevant when injecting algorithms based on AI mechanisms into the platforms.

The implementation of minimal interoperability provides the common technical ground that cities
and communities need to enable choice, flexibility, value for money and independence, through
avoiding vendor lock-in. The platforms should support formal, de facto and emerging standards,
in order to ensure they are future-proof and stable.

The trustworthiness and the interoperability of the platforms addresses the triple baseline of social,
environmental, and economic benefits, and supports strategic aims such as the United Nations
Sustainable Development Goals.

The platform architectures proposed in the recommended specifications and frameworks have
been validated in large-scale pilots by a large variety of companies in close and direct partnerships
with the cities and communities, as well as networks of cities.

7.2 Architectural capabilities

The framework shown in figure 13 provides a description of, and guidelines for, a common
architecture/framework, including a layered overview positioning of all the components and
interfaces, as well as the associated requirements and specifications. They include a description
of reference implementations, including conformance testing and/or feedback from market use
validation.

To go more into detail, we consider the following topics as common architectural design principles:

– A layered and capability-based approach to follow a common architectural model in different
cities/domains.

– Based on open international standards (where available): we do not want to reinvent the wheel,
and this will also ensure stable and widely used technological approaches.
– Compliant with existing technical solutions (e.g., already present in the cities with many legacy
systems) focusing on interoperable interfaces rather than component implementation.

– Modular and scalable solutions for small and big cities to support different deployment scenarios
and performance requirements.

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