Big Data and Context–Aware Computing Applications for Smart Sustainable Cities of the Future

Abstract

Information processing is increasingly embedded in the systems and processes of the contemporary city to enhance its operations, functions, and designs. This has been fueled by the new digital transition in ICT enabled by an integration of various forms of pervasive computing. Driving this transition predominantly are big data analytics and context–aware computing and their increasing amalgamation in a number of urban application domains, especially when such analytics and computing share the same enabling technologies, namely pervasive sensing devices, computing infrastructures, data processing platforms, and wireless communication networks. The purpose of this paper is to outline the key technological components of big data and context–aware computing, to demonstrate the opportunities and applications computing has to offer, and to identify the challenges it poses in the context of smart sustainable cities. We argue that combining big data analytics and context–aware computing can be leveraged in the advancement of urban sustainability, as their effects in this regard reinforce one another as to their efforts for transforming urban life by employing the data–centric and smart applications and services to improve, harness, and integrate urban systems as well as facilitate collaboration among urban domains.