Smart City：On Urban Operational Collaboration

Rui Cao and Weidong Kou

（IBM，Beijing 100101，China）

Smart City：On Urban Operational Collaboration

Rui Cao and Weidong Kou

（IBM，Beijing 100101，China）

This paper expounds the origin of urban operational coordination problem in historical setting，points out that operational coordina?tion problem is essential to cities，induces the major challenges and opportunities for urban operating coordination at present，and takes IBM Intelligent Operation Center as example to illustrate the typical solutions with the detailed case study of the Intelligent Operation Center in Rio de Janerio.

smart city；urban operation；coordination；Intelligent Operation Center（IOC）

1 Introduction

Since the“smart city”concept was introduced by IBM in 2008［1］，it has been the subject of much discussion in terms of theories，standards，and solu?tions.It has been explored on a practical level across the globe.However，the city as a human society，the most complex and sophisticated system，issued as culture of human civilization［2］，how to efficiently operate it is the prob?lem that should be fully taken into account at the beginning of urban construction.It has been found out that the origin of inef?ficiency of urban construction in operational aspects comes from the repeated constructions and conflicts between different parties.

This paper will discuss smart city in terms of urban opera?tional coordination，on its brief history，features and best prac?tices nowadays，and also probe into the future about urban op?erational coordination.

2 Origin of the Urban Operational Coordination Problem

A city evolves from the countryside，and it is a more com?plex form for the gregarious than the countryside.Cities origi?nated between BC 3500 to BC 3000 in Mesopotamia［3］.In the 5，000 years prior to the Industrial Revolution，cities evolved slowly.In ancient cities with limited scale and simple func?tions，urban operation is simple and pure：on Sundays，people go to church with their families when they heard the bow bell，or gather around in the citizen square to vote or discuss.

As cities have expanded and become more and more com?plex，with various functions，urban operation has become a problem，and urban operational coordination problem has be?come crucial.

2.1 Changes of Urban Scale

Tacitly，urban scale was considered to be within a day’s walking distance from anywhere of the city both in ancient western and eastern culture.Citizens could walk to school，to the shops，to hospital，and of course，to the square.In the Re?public，Plato believed that an ideal city should be the size of a speaker voice can be heard.And ancient Chinese describe city scale as“three?mile inner city，seven?mile outer city”.［4］

In the Middle Ages，the London expanded as far as the reach of bow bell of St Mary［5］.Xi’an was the capital of 13 dy?nasties in Chinese history，and it used to be one of the most prosperous cities in the world.The perimeter of Xi’an Circum?vallation，which was built around AD600，is 13.74 km.Each wall extends between 2.6 km to 4.2 km.［6］

Nowadays，over 50%of the world’s population live in a city. That is equivalent to over 3 billion people［7］.London covers 1577.3 km2and has more than 8 million residents［8］.The pe?rimeter of Beijing’s 5th Ring is around 100 kms［9］，and it is always the case in rush hours that you have to drive 2 to 3 hours in order to across the city from east to the west；more than 20 million people live in this mega city.

Not any square can accommodate all citizens，and not any voice can be heard at the same time.The tremendous change on scale is not simply quantitative change；the concept of mod?ern city differs a lot from that in the old times.

2.2 The Diversification of Urban Functions and the Division of Functional Departments

Cities originate from religious activities［10］.People gatheraround at a certain place to worship their ancestors，pray，and trail sometimes.The initial function of city is a religious cen?ter.Authority always accompanies religion，especially in the early stage of human history.Not surprisingly，the city became a center of authority.To satisfy the demands of rulers，monks and nobility，more and more people come to the city center. They work there，trade there，and entertain there.Naturally，the city became trade center，traffic center，and gradually cul?ture center，art center，economic center，etc.The city is like magnet in the way it attracts people and produces a kind of chemical reaction.It creates numerous possibilities between groups of people.

To regulate the“product”of the chemical reactions，numer?ous departments have been set up—from water management to public safety，from traffic department to central government. Recently a report revealed that China has around 40 million public service staff and 1.3 million agencies while some of them have more than one affiliates.［11］

3 Challenges and Opportunities of Urban Operational Coordination in Modern City

In the present day，most cities across the globe are facing a lot of operational issues.This in turn is deteriorating the quali?ty of services that are being delivered to their citizens.To en?sure safety and provide basic utilities，public transport，infra?structure facilities，so on，cities need to collate huge amounts of information from diverse sources and at the same time facili?tate real time communication and collaboration among various city agencies.However，there are some big challenges.

3.1 Challenge：Information Islands

There are two origins of Information Island：collaboration mechanism and information system.

The water department plans to work on a city street in June，while in July，the utilities team plans to replace a gas line in the same location.How many times would the road be dug？It depends on whether the information has been shared between the two bureaus.This kind of information islands is caused by collaboration mechanism.

Learned from experiences in IBM smart city projects related to urban information system，the systems of different parties rarely compatible with each other.The way critical information is often stored hinders situational awareness and makes it diffi?cult for various departments to coordinate emergency response efforts：

·Critical information is often stored in multiple disparate sys?tems，across multiple，disconnected departments，hindering situational awareness and making it difficult for city officials to coordinate agency efforts.

·They lack a single，integrated view of events，incidents or impending crises，and the ability to rapidly share informa?tion.

Without a single，integrated view of events，incidents or im?pending crises，and without the ability to rapidly share informa?tion，a city might be unable to deliver services in a sustainable way，protect citizens，or drive economic growth for the future. However，it is not fair to criticize urban departments and their lack of top?level system design because the systems were built as cities were developing.It is a progressive process，but we have suffered too much.It becomes the bottleneck of urban op?eration capability.

3.2 Challenge：Limitation of Urban Management Capability

As mentioned in section 2.2，cities have various functions with considerable numbers of organizations supporting them. Collaboration across these organizations is critical for address?ing crises，completing projects，and increasing the efficiency of daily operations.However，coordination different domains is not easy.The cross?domain collaboration capability gradually becomes bottleneck of urban management.

According to the 1907 Survey of New York traffic，at that time，the carriage moved at an average speed of 11.5 mph.In the 1960s，for a car slowly driving on the road，the average speed was about six miles per hour［12］.This may precisely demonstrate what happened without proper management in the 1960s.In the 21st century，although people have much faster cars and plenty of advanced technology to promote traffic man?agement，the average driving speed is around 13 mph on the street on weekdays［13］.

Transportation is just part of the problem.Carrying capacity and management capability of existing systems are also con?stantly being challenged by the rapid spread of infectious dis?eases—the Korean MERS［14］virus carrier concealed his ill?ness when traveling to Hong Kong，Shenzhen and Huizhou and put millions of people in danger of being infected—by vicious terrorist group event—boomers set off booms on 2013 Boston Marathon［15］，caused four died and hundreds of injury.There are still lots of challenges out there，more complex and sophis?ticated than ever.

3.3 Opportunity：Advanced Information Technology

The past two decades have seen rapid advances in sensors，database technologies，search engines，data mining，machine learning，statistics，distributed computing，visualization，and modeling and simulation.These technologies，which collective?ly underpin big data，are allowing organizations to acquire，transmit，store，and analyze all manner of data in greater vol?ume，with greater velocity.In terms of the individual，internet and mobile/wearable devices enable people to continuously ob?tain or create data，location information，social opinion，physi?cal data，etc.The increasing volume and detail of information captured by enterprises，the rise of multimedia，social media，and the Internet of Things will fuel the exponential growth of data for the foreseeable future.

In applying advanced information technologies in urban op?eration，sensors will reduce or eliminate traffic jams and opti?mize energy demand.New mapping technologies will identify and help to correct urban problems that no one could see be?fore.Social media and crowdsourcing will target big and small problems，down to which potholes to fix—maybe even make governments work again.Wireless devices and networks make up the evolution of the digital nervous system（all?seeing）“eyes”and（all?hearing）“ears”［16］.Considering the city as a huge nervous system，even tiniest stimulation can be per?ceived.The challenge is to build on this and other successes with a new generation of data tools that help us identify and collaborate effectively，especially on urban challenges.

3.4 Opportunity：Subversion of Coordination Pattern

As is mentioned in section 3.3，information technology en?ables non?distance，non?time equation and non?cost communi?cation among online people and things.Ideas spread with no limitations；real?time gathering and sharing of knowledge is easy and almost free.Traditional management and collabora?tion patterns are being subverted.

The winning strategy of DARPA Network Challenge perfect?ly illustrates how people leverage internet to efficiently collabo?rate.In the challenge，teams had to find 10 red weather bal?loons deployed at undisclosed locations across the continental United States.The first team to correctly identify the locations of all 10 won a$40，000 prize.The winning MIT team had more than 5000 participants，all of whom were leveraging the Inter?net.Their strategy was to recruit participants，and the prize money was distributed up the chain of participants leading to successful balloon spotting.All prize income remaining after distribution to participants to be given to charity.The team on?ly began with four initial participants.And finally，this team found 10 red balloons across the US within 7 hours［17］.

There are also many other cases that show the power of infor?mation technology in connecting people to achieve something humans never could have imagined decades ago.A classic case in politics is how the Arab Spring revolution be affected by Facebook［18］.

4 Solutions and Practice on Addressing Urban Operational Coordination Problem at Present

At present，there are some solutions and practices related to urban operational coordination issue.IBM Intelligent Opera?tion Center（IOC）is a typical and relatively mature solution in the market［19］.

IBM IOC unifies applications and processes that are tradi?tionally independent and isolated.It leverages real?time visibil?ity of cross?city data to reduce cost；it anticipates and proac?tively manages problems to mitigate impact to services and citi?zens，and coordinates cross?agency operations with business and citizen participation to drive economic prosperity and in?crease citizen involvement.

The conceptual containment layout（Fig.1）has the follow?ing key components：

1）Main viewer：The main viewer displays several views of city information.For example，a user can switch between：

·A view showing a heat?map presenting an at?a?glance visual?ization of the city key performance indicator（KPI）status

·A view of the KPI scorecard with a detailed textual display showing actual versus planned metric data

The main viewer presents two types of graphical information：

·Geospatial information，which is displayed on a map where various layers can be turned on or off depending on the level of detail and information required.The geospatial view is customizable to show information for a specific KPI.

·System maps，which are a schematic view of the linkages be?tween various attributes.

2）Event widgets：Event widgets are the eyes and ears of the IOC，capturing event data at the infrastructure level and making it available to an enterprise service bus（ESB）.Busi?ness and process rules can be applied to further enhance de?cision?making.The effect of KPIs can be determined in near real time.As events occur，business rules can be ap?plied to determine which KPIs will be affected.Geospatial and city view：The city view widget can provide many over?lays on a geospatial map including weather patterns，streets，buildings，events，infrastructure，work order，and asset de?tail.The city view widget provides key information.For ex?ample a public safety official can view the current police of?ficer assignments or a water operator can review pipe infra?structure and current work order requests for the day.

3）Collaboration：The ability to instantly communicate and share information within the IOC is helpful in breaking down barriers.Interest groups，including managers and SMEs，can be created，their status can be instantly deter?mined，and real?time contact can be made for a quick up?date.

4）Real?time and historical data：A key role of the IOC is to provide all pertinent information within a well?defined con?text.If a KPI has an attribute associated with it that cap?tures data，it can then be displayed through the charting widget.With filters，the data can be viewed over a period of time or against other data sources.This information can be used to show trends，comparisons，correlations，and more.If required，the user can access the raw data and export that data to another application for further analysis.

5）Analytics：Much value is gained by a city harnessing the ad?vantages of analytics.The IOC gathers data from many do?mains or departments，allowing the city to make informed decisions.As explained in“event widgets”，a weather fore?cast of heavy rainfall，along with other factors（such as street layout and gradient）and related data（such as maintenance requests），can be used in the analysis of the situation.Ana?lytic capabilities in the IOC provide information that a city manager can use to analyze the effect on services（such as street maintenance and bus routes）.This information can be used to determine action that needs to be taken to control the extent of the flood，street closures，and other assets locat?ed in the affected area.

6）Task management：The IOC can be profiled and customized to suit the user’s preferences.A list of tasks that require ac?tion by the user can be displayed，allowing the user to con?centrate on what is required and increase their efficiency. The user can update and respond to pending tasks，such as performing impact analysis on a predicted scenario or re?sponding to a directive that requires the attention of their de?partment.

4.1 Mechanism：Event-Based Management

Event?based management contrasts with traditional authori?ty discipline based management.In the case that a truck scat?tered some chemical on the road by accident，the bureaus of road，traffic，public safety and environment protection are re?quired to take action immediately.In practice，coordination be?tween those bureaus is not as smooth and efficient as we ex?pect.

The following is an example of event?based management with intelligent operation center.

Scenario：Coordination of Resources in Response to Events on a College Campus

On the day of a home football game with a sellout crowd，a pipe bursts under a nearby dormitory.The university president or management would see：

·Visualization of water pipe event location on map，and in proximity to the football stadium，nearby dorms，and a bus route.

·Status of campus departments，including several that have an issue in need of attention（civil affairs，mass transit，wa?ter，and housing）.

·Nearby video camera that shows a live view of area affected by the burst pipe event. Anticipate Problems

1）Overall management problem identification and analysis

The University Manager：

·Views the water pipe event along with other nearby events/issues that may be effected

·Notices system notification that the event is in the same area as the football game and cor?responding bus routes，which may require some intervention.

·Reviews current weather forecast to see if rain might affect water cleanup/repair and/or if it might further complicate crowd flow around the spill.

·Escalates the event to an incident to initiate a predefined cross?agency process for redirecting the crowd，re?routing the bus，and evacuating the dorm.

2）Identifying coordinate resources needed and making neces?sary arrangements Campus Manager：

·Views the details of the water pipe event，and the related events at the dorm，stadium，and bus route.

·Reviews the status of the in?process workflow and is able to monitor progress as the appropriate police resources are re?directing the crowd，after the dorm has been evacuated and the bus has been rerouted.

·Collaborates with the water department to ensure that the water pipe is being repaired.

4.1.1 How Event Information is Delivered

Events are characterized as short，self?contained IT messag?es that have embedded information used by receivers to under?stand or become aware of the incident.Events can be pub?lished to topic queues and read by all interested subscribing IT systems.Event data comes from operational control systems and triggers processing in the IOC.One key part of the IOC is the event processing subsystem（EPS），which stores and manag?es the events.

4.1.2 Unified Event Data Format

Event data comes from operational systems in various for?mats.The event data is normalized as it is received into a com?mon format.The event normalizing protocol must be structured to fit the events found in city management systems and the IOC.A standard model manager can be used to provide a com?mon dictionary of city assets and to map asset relationships. This tool enables effective analysis and response to events without the need for multiple translations of information.

4.1.3 How Event Alerts are Displayed

Events are self?contained IT messages that are maintainedwithin the IOC.Alerts encapsulate one or more events and might require specific attention.For example，alerts affect the operation of city systems，such as water treatment or public transportation，and can report ad?hoc occurrences that affect city life. Alerts that affect the operation of a city are forwarded to the IOC from op?erational systems.At the IOC，the alert is displayed on an operations dashboard and can be analyzed to de?termine appropriate actions.

In some cases，the IOC can issue advice to the domain or department to consider the information being provid?ed.Often an impact analysis state?ment is requested from various city domains to assess the overall impact on the city.

Another form of communication is notifications that are based on a sub?scribe/publish service，where citizens can be notified of information of inter?est or public alerts by using an SMS.

▲Figure 2.Event information flow among systems［19］.

4.1.4 KPIs Based on Event Management

Knowledge of government policies of a city，including orga?nizational and authorization structure，is important for deter?mining IOC requirements.These policies must be understood at the domain and cross?domain level，enabling communica?tion and coordination flows to be defined and implemented.In addition，the measurement of governance effectiveness is im?portant to many cities and can help define and measure KPIs. Another important element is control mechanisms，which en?sure compliance with various policies.

The tracking of events，alerts，directives，notifications，and advisories is required to manage incidents and situations. These city actions and communications（regardless of the form they take）can be captured in the form of an audit trail，for gov?ernance，and to enable learning

4.2 Data Collection and Access

4.2.1 Data Collection

A cross?domain operations center provides a holistic view of the city by allowing access to information and data collected from a shared information space（Fig.2）.This shared informa?tion space contains information from various sources in the city and enables domains to contribute relevant data and analysis. This approach ensures that all related information is provided to city officials，giving them a comprehensive view of prob?lems.It also enables them to understand and take action in a coordinated manner across city domains.The IOC receives da?ta in a format that can be processed and updated by the system.

4.2.2 Data Access：Comprehensive and Role Tailored Dashboard

From a user?experience perspective，the central challenge is that cities are enormously complex and dynamic.The IOC must support users ranging from city executives to domain ex?perts who have a deep expertise in particular aspects of a city’s functioning.Furthermore，there should be an executive dash?board to depict the overall status of the city’s operations.This spans individual agency?specific solution areas and enables drill?down capability into each underlying agency（e.g.，water management，public safety and traffic management），and it pro?vides for integrated collaboration within the views.

IBM IOC has a comprehensive web?based environment that provides consumable information that is necessary for making informed decisions.The dashboard provides a customized user interface based on specific user roles within a city organization or domain，such as the following views：

·City mayor or other top officials within the city.This view provides a high?level roll?up of key domain KPIs.By using this view，officials can collaborate on decisions and deter?mine actions or directives for the city domains.

·City operator.This view is tailored to individuals or teams managing cross?domain events or incidents.These events or incidents can have a broader effect on the city as a whole.

4.3 Comprehensive System Infrastructure

IBM IOC as a system of systems supports：

·Integration of subsystems：Stan?dard interfaces and domain?spe?cific interfaces for integrating various systems（Fig.3），integra?tion of various reporting/alerting/ analyzing mechanisms，and por?tal and user account manage?ment system to ensure unified management and scheduling across various systems.

·Application subsystems：（Fig.4）Integrate subsystems such as transport，environmental protec?tion，government information li?brary，etc.

Relying on the IOC，IBM also provides systems for vertical appli?cations of intelligent management of all aspects of the city，including government services，public security，intelligent transportation，water management，digital city management，food safety，and logistics.

In terms of cross?domain operation and management，IBM IOC supports：organization?wide dashboards，domain analytics，event and KPI management，geospatial mapping，data model?ing and integration，simulation and visualization，cross?depart?

·Incident or emergency manager. This view helps managers under?stand an incident or emergency，manage the response，and track it to completion.

·City domain manager or opera?tor.This view helps managers or operators track and manage KPIs，events，and work orders. They can view current and his?torical data and participate in cross?organization collaboration.

·Citizen.This view can be infor?mative，e.g.，provide details about road closures，and encour?age citizen input，such as real?time information about crime and city infrastructure issues. This interaction is intended to be motivational and to encour?age involvement in sustainable programs，such as reducing wa?ter or electricity use. ment collaboration，situational awareness，incident manage?ment，alerts，and directives.

▲Figure 3.Overview architecture of IBM IOC［19］.

▲Figure 4.System interactions of IBM IOC［19］.

4.4 Citizen Engagement

By coordinating across agencies and collaborating with citi?zens and new partners，cities can transform traditional work structures to promote innovation.

The IOC gets data from citizens by leveraging IBM citizen sensing platform.This platform works in three ways：

·It helps the city understand its citizens.A city planner can understand the needs and priorities based on direct citizen input，effectively deputizing thousands of people to report problems and ask questions.This saves staffing costs and improve citizen engagement.

·Timely updates to citizens and evidence of actions taken against their requests to engage citizens in the government process.The goal is more involved and more informed con?stituents that are satisfied with the services being provided.

·The IOC can interact with citizens and visitors in numerous ways.This communication and interaction can be bidirec?tional between the city and citizens.The city can provide citizens with important safety information and information related to city policies.For example，if a serious traffic acci?dent is blocking a main road through the city，the city can notify the citizens.As another example，if a hazardous waste is spilled and people in a specific area need to be evacuat?ed，the city can notify citizens in that area.In addition，citi?zens can report up?to?date situational information to the city.With this information from citizens，city officials can revise decisions or allocate resources as needed.

The IOC also provides citizens with a platform to report less serious incidents，such as water leaks or potholes in their area. This information can be used to schedule maintenance.Servic?es can be provided to citizens so that they can subscribe to no?tifications pertaining to particular areas of the city.For exam?ple，public traffic notifications can identify unscheduled road works or other unplanned disruptions.These notifications might allow citizens to adjust their travel plans，maybe take a different route or means of transport to work.

The IOC can also be used to develop programs and initia?tives with citizens.For example，if water or electrical meters share usage data with the IOC，this data can be used to build usage patterns for individuals，streets，and districts.Motivation?al techniques can be used to help manage this usage.These techniques can include pricing models or incentives to those who participate in the program and actively reduce resource consumption.This approach has a positive benefit for the city by reducing dependency on resources and for the citizens who are making a difference and potentially getting paid for it.

4.4.1 A Practical Case of Citizen Collaboration：City Forward

The City Forward［20］is a free，web?based platform for ana?lyzing and visualizing data from cities around the world.Right now，the City Forward offers municipal data for more than 100 world cities，and it is growing.

That data is publicly available，but it is often scattered or ex?ists in a variety of formats，making it hard to compare one city or service to another.Even in a single city，such data is often published independently by individual agencies，making it hard to see the bigger picture.The City Forward addresses these issues by bringing useful statistics and graphing tools to?gether in one place，offering easier and more insightful analy?sis.Citizens can easily access to those data and custom their own analysis.

5 Intelligent Operation Center Case Study：Rio de Janiero

Rio Emergency Management Centre，Brazil：The IBM IOC powered Emergency Operations Center provides real time alerts for floods and landslides to prevent loss of life and infra?structure，better inter?agency coordination，better management of resources and better preparation for addressing emergency and disaster management situations.Rio de Janiero City Hall deployed a Web?based portal that integrates information，appli?cations and resources across agencies.It reduces fully de?ployed disaster response times from days to hours.［21］，［22］

·2009：Rio de Janeiro chosen for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics

·April 2010：Floods result in serious loss of life and property

·May 2010：In consultation with IBM，visionary Mayor de?cides to not only address flood crisis management，but to in?tegrate city’s operations across all departments

5.1 Pain Points

The city has many pain points before using the IBM IOC so?lution，for examples：

·aging systems that were in silos

·no common operational picture across disaster and crisis management teams

·legacy alert system that was very manual intensive

·lack of comprehensive disaster management plans

·difficulties in organizing and distributing disaster manage?ment plans

·Decision making process for flood prediction was based on basic weather reports and radar information，which was not sufficient to have good predictions.

·lack of visibility of resources and overall picture of resource requirements with wide spread disaster

·lack of radio interoperability across departments

5.2 Solution and Implementation

The solution and implementation include the following com?ponents or aspects：

·common operation picture with data fusion in City Opera?tions Center with Geographical Information System（GIS）

·dynamic planning tools

·consultancy to define and deliver disaster management plans

·load Operations Center planning module with new disaster plans

·partially automate legacy alert notification system within City Operations Center

·cross agency collaboration with collaboration suite

·incident management tool

·recovery management tools

·integrate legacy video feeds

·future phase considerations—compatible with City Opera?tions Center based on IBM’s Government Industry Frame?work

·radio interoperability with Radio Connect

·full alert notification automation and GIS based alerting

·dynamic team building to do intelligent assembly of first re?sponder teams from available personnel

·process automation and Re?engineering

·include smarter transportation elements

·flood and water level sensors

·smart Video analytics.

5.3 Accomplishment

Inaugurated in December 2010，the 400 member strong op?eration center consolidates 30 municipal agencies，ranging from emergency services to sanitation and public transport，in?to a single，integrated command center that can monitor weath?er，traffic，and aspects of the city and react swiftly and effec?tively in face of emergencies and crises and would do so through cutting edge technology.These cutting?edge technolo?gies have allowed the Rio de Janeiro to not only address prob?lems it faces from severe storms but also addressed other lag?ging areas of the city’s public infrastructure［22］.The benefits include：

·Using the Operations Center’s website，Brazilians can get real time weather updates and traffic advisories（both for public transportation and for the roads in general）for the whole city.

·In addition，all Brazilians can view live feeds via the Opera?tions Center’s web page for many of the streets in Rio de Ja?neiro.On the ground，storm warning systems much like Tsu?nami warning systems alert people to severe storms for their neighborhoods and emergency tests/simulations.

·Going beyond even having a standard web presence，The Op?erations Center maintains both Facebook and Twitter ac?counts that regularly send out alerts and updates through the day and night.

·As a final and important aspect of the Operation Center’s public accessibility is its ability to have its alerts available to Brazilians on the move during their day.

·Considering that smartphones which can easily access the

Operations Center and its updates via the website and social media apps like Facebook and Twitter only account for un?der 10%of the current mobile phone market for Brazil，near?ly all Brazilians in the larger cities have some kind of cellu?lar phone，all the same updates that are available for non?smartphones and emergency messages are sent out to all citi?zens in the affected area through SMS messages，making it so that even a person still using a monochromatic display cell phone（think the greenish?grey phone displays）can still receive vital messages such as incoming storms，evacuation orders，and evacuation routes on their mobile phones.

6 Conclusions

The city，as the container of human civilization，is expand?ing to its limits.While the shape of this container was decided centuries ago，reflecting the knowledge and desire of our forefa?thers.It is our chance and duty to re?define the shape，with technology tools and deeper understanding of the society we live in.That shape of container increases social efficiency，con?venience and happiness of citizens.

In addressing the urban operational collaboration problems，efforts are being made on capitalizing on new insights by dis?tilling insights from the massive quantities and sources of data generated by day?to?day operations，cities can approach long?standing challenges in new ways；creating system?wide efficien?cies by optimizing and integrating operations，cities can lever?age interdependency between systems to do more with less. Collaborating in new ways by coordinating across agencies and collaborating with citizens and new partners，cities can trans?form traditional work structures to promote innovation.

Looking into the future of city operation，we expect more flexible，interactive urban operation organizations instead of separated bureaus.We will have unified systems and well?man?aged data instead of information islands，sharper sense to dan?ger and accident，more accurate predictions，more effective and timely actions，and finally，more democratic cities that lis?ten to people，respect their demands，and protect their rights.

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank IBM Smart City Community for their excellent work which forms the foundation of this pa?per.We would also like to thank APEC Smart City Forum Or?ganization Committee to invite one of us to present IBM Smart City architecture and solutions in both 2012 and 2014 APEC Smart City Forums，held in Changzhou，China［23］.

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Manuscript received：2015?08?16

Biographies

Rui Cao（caoruibj@cn.ibm.com）currently is IBM Global Business Service consul?tant.She received a Bachelor degree in industrial design from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications，and a Master degree in engineering from The Uni?versity of Hong Kong，with major in E?commerce&Internet Computing.In the past three years，she had been with IBM，working as a consultant in smart city，banking，telecommunication，and retail industries，with emphasis on applying advanced infor?mation technology into traditional industries.

Weidong Kou（kouwd@cn.ibm.com）currently is IBM Asia Pacific&Great China Group Chief Architect and Cloud Executive for Global Alliance.He has 30 years of IT industrial and academic experience，including over 20 years of IT practice in IBM and over 6 years of application software development in AT&T and Siemens. He was the dean of the school of computer sciences and engineering at Xidian Uni?versity，and he has been a full visiting/adjunct professor in 17 universities around the global，including the University of Maryland in US and the University of Hong Kong.He has published 7 books and over 100 papers in journals and international conferences.Dr.Kou is the Laurent of the highest award from China National Gov?ernment to the international experts in 2004.

Roundup Introduction toZTE Communications

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