IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - January/February 2020 - 104

Special Section on Cognitive Science and AI for Human Cognition and Communication

discuss its relationship with other related concepts, e.g., sustainable, digital, future, intelligent,
or green cities. These authors also propose to collect and redistribute real-time information about
the traffic conditions by means of social networks. Chen et al.[9] discuss the connection
between ITS and smart cities. They highlight
energy savings and reduction of greenhouse gas
emissions as two of the main benefits for citizens
derived from investment in ITS. Addanki and Venkataraman[10] analyze how new smart sustainable
cities can be designed and built considering the
climate change and population growth. Chauhan
et al.[11] provide a complete literature review on
the challenges associated with the use of big data
to enhance citizens' cognition and lifestyle. Often,
the aforementioned issues are extremely complex
and require from emergent ITs and intelligent
algorithms. This paper analyzes some of these
challenges and proposes hybrid approaches that
can be employed to address them.

could offer enough value for that. The role of the
citizens is critical for the design of these services,
since they are not only potential clients but are
also willing to actively participate in the city government. In a smart sustainable city, the combination of ITs with data analytics plays a "problem
solver" role. Many regions across the world are
experiencing a population increase in their main
cities. This fact represents a huge challenge that
forces us to redefine the role of citizens, organizations, and politicians, as well as to focus the
efforts of researchers, managers, and policy makers in the design of technology enhanced, socially
aware, and more sustainable urban areas. Therefore, the digital transformation of cities has a double objective: 1) to take advantage of new
opportunities derived from the change of citizens
behavior; and 2) to solve new problems and challenges arising in new cities concepts.

DIGITAL CITIZEN

Different challenges that need to be properly
addressed to improve both digital citizens' cognition as well as their quality of life are reviewed
in this section. These challenges include, among
others, smart waste collection management,
an increase in the utilization of electric and
unmanned vehicles, and the optimal location of
urban distribution centers (see Figure 2).

ITs are radically influencing and redefining
citizens' behavior. ITs are changing public relations in several ways: 1) among individuals, 2)
among individuals and companies, and 3) among
organizations. One of the key points of ITs is the
combination of interactivity with the new characteristics of mass communication, such as the
unlimited range of contents and the global reach
of the audience. The democratized utilization of
ITs creates a change in the users behavior. This
change allows the evolution from the concept of
society to the ones of "digital society" and
"digital citizen."[12]
These new digital citizens demand more services from cities and, in particular, an enhancement
in their lifestyle, both during working and leisure
time. These goals can be achieved by efficiently
combining ITs with data analytics, thus, increasing the cognitive capacity of citizens, generating
new services for them, and also supporting them
to make better decisions in such a complex and
dynamic environment. Some authors identify this
potential of new services as a double opportunity:[13] 1) to improve citizens' cognition levels
and satisfaction and 2) to create a new business
model for the city, since some of these services

104

IMPROVING LIFE IN SUSTAINABLE
CITIES

Electric Vehicles
Operation activities in the area of logistics
and transportation (L&T) have not only a business impact but also a social and environmental
one. The industry is continuously growing and
has a significant impact on the regional gross
domestic product worldwide. The interconnectivity between countries and international trade
require especially fast and innovative L&T solutions for road transportation to effectively
respond to the extensive usage of motorized
vehicles. Engineers and scientists have been
focusing on this field, aiming at providing reallife applicable solutions. Among all, the reoccurrence of modeling and optimization of tour
assignments stands out, known as the vehicle
routing problem (VRP), which is addressed in
numerous variants. In Europe and the U.S., road

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