IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - January/February 2020 - 105

Figure 2. Improving citizens' cognition and quality
of life in smart sustainable cities.

transportation accounts for a large percentage
of oil consumption, CO2 emissions, and total
greenhouse gas. The high variability in price of
oil-based products and the dependence on oilbased energy sources is considered as a longterm risk that requires mitigation, i.e., both business and environmental goals have to be considered when developing distribution models in the
"on demand economy," so that low-emission
logistics operations are achieved. Besides going
easy on resources and optimizing the total usage
of traditional vehicles, adequate routing models
have to include vehicles empowered by alternative sources of energy, such as EVs or even
human-powered small vehicles for urban centers.[14] Due to their advantageous use of energy,
EVs can effectively reduce primary energy consumption and are highly recommendable from
an environmental and energy point of view. Yet,
there are still concerns in terms of: 1) the limited
duration of their batteries, 2) the long recharging times these batteries require, and 3) the
insufficient number of battery charging points.
In earlier years, the competitive deployment of
EVs has not been as successful as some experts
predicted due to the high prices of EVs as well

January/February 2020

as to their driving-range limitations. This is likely
to change in the next few years as the market
price of EVs is continuously diminishing, their
driving-range capabilities increasing, and several
governments are promoting regulations that
constrain the utilization of traditional vehicles in
urban centers and will increase the number of
charging points across many cities. More than
ever, it becomes a necessity to use low-carbon
energy sources in urban freight logistics and citizens' transportation that promote sustainability
in modern urban, metropolitan, and peri-urban
areas. A positive trend of greater involvement of
EVs in road distribution activities is particularly
promising in urban areas, where its full potential
is yet to be explored. Concerns about additional
complications, in terms of planning and handling
a higher number of EVs, have to be taken into
consideration too. Several strategic, tactical,
and operational issues need to be considered,
including:
1. the design and building of charging stations
for EVs,
2. the optimal composition of heterogeneous
fleets combining EVs and other type of
vehicles,
3. the optimization of routes using vehicles
with different driving-range capabilities,
4. the time-related and synchronization factors
associated with these driving-range constraints,
5. the monetary cost of using EVs and humanpowered vehicles instead of traditional
trucks, and
6. the use of data collected from drivers to
empower other drivers as well as to improve
the self-driving capability of cars.

Waste Collection Management
The increasing number of citizens living in
cities is requesting public services to provide a
profitable, sustainable, and metropolitan-friendly
solution for its waste collection. Currently, operating waste collection is not only cost intensive,
but it also comes along with a variety of side
effects-such as traffic congestion, noise, and air
pollution. These side effects put waste collection
in the limelight of public services. The waste collection and disposal optimization process is
especially interesting due to the interlaced

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IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - January/February 2020

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