Rashid Mehmood, Royston Meriton, Gary Graham, Patrick Hennelly · 5 authors
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to advance knowledge of the transformative potential of big data on city-based transport models. The central question guiding this paper is: how could big data transform smart city transport operations? In answering this question the authors present initial results from a Markov study. However the authors also suggest caution in the transformation potential of big data and highlight the risks of city and organizational adoption. A theoretical framework is presented together with an associated scenario which guides the development of a Markov model. Design/methodology/approach A model with several scenarios is developed to explore a theoretical framework focussed on matching the transport demands (of people and freight mobility) with city transport service provision using big data. This model was designed to illustrate how sharing transport load (and capacity) in a smart city can improve efficiencies in meeting demand for city services. Findings This modelling study is an initial preliminary stage of the investigation in how big data could be used to redefine and enable new operational models. The study provides new understanding about load sharing and optimization in a smart city context. Basically the authors demonstrate how big data could be used to improve transport efficiency and lower externalities in a smart city. Further how improvement could take place by having a car free city environment, autonomous vehicles and shared resource capacity among providers. Research limitations/implications The research relied on a Markov model and the numerical solution of its steady state probabilities vector to illustrate the transformation of transport operations management (OM) in the future city context. More in depth analysis and more discrete modelling are clearly needed to assist in the implementation of big data initiatives and facilitate new innovations in OM. The work complements and extends that of Setia and Patel (2013), who theoretically link together information system design to operation absorptive capacity capabilities. Practical implications The study implies that transport operations would actually need to be re-organized so as to deal with lowering CO 2 footprint. The logistic aspects could be seen as a move from individual firms optimizing their own transportation supply to a shared collaborative load and resourced system. Such ideas are radical changes driven by, or leading to more decentralized rather than having centralized transport solutions (Caplice, 2013). Social implications The growth of cities and urban areas in the twenty-first century has put more pressure on resources and conditions of urban life. This paper is an initial first step in building theory, knowledge and critical understanding of the social implications being posed by the growth in cities and the role that big data and smart cities could play in developing a resilient and sustainable transport city system. Originality/value Despite the importance of OM to big data implementation, for both practitioners and researchers, we have yet to see a systematic analysis of its implementation and its absorptive capacity contribution to building capabilities, at either city system or organizational levels. As such the Markov model makes a preliminary contribution to the literature integrating big data capabilities with OM capabilities and the resulting improvements in system absorptive capacity.
Blockchain technology has the potential to transform dramatically how a modern economy deals with maintaining and updating records. This innovation has already created lots of turbulence in financial markets and beyond. It will be a challenge to let markets figure out how to best use this technology while ensuring consumer safety and efficiency. Our goal in this paper is to unveil the potential of blockchain technology and guide regulators in how to approach the challenges this technology entails. The most well-known examples of blockchains are found in the area of payments systems and, more generally, in financial markets. It is thus understandable that the financial industry is leading the charge to unearth the potential of this technology in order to find cost efficiencies, but also to recapture above normal profits. The potential application of this technology, however, reaches much further than merely being a currency like bitcoin or a record-keeping system. Early applications of this technology include smart contracts and attempts by governments to build universal online identification systems. Blockchain technology also introduces new concepts such as cryptographic communication protocols and distributed data storage that can increase the safety of electronic networks and offer potential cost efficiency. We do not expect distributed ledgers to completely supplant traditional intermediaries, especially in areas where these intermediaries are of systemic importance or provide services that require a high degree of ad hoc coordination. Still, many elements of this new technology offer a unique opportunity for such intermediaries to modernize their infrastructures and offer their clients safer and cheaper systems. It is not clear, however, how to realize such benefits in a way that makes sure they are passed on to the economy as a whole. This leads us to identify three major challenges and priorities for policymakers and regulators arising from blockchain technology: 1. Design a principle-based regulation regime that achieves high safety standards, legal certainty and a stable environment for transactions based on distributed ledger technology; 2. Ensure that this technology leads to appropriate end-user cost efficiencies rather than simply a redistribution of above-normal profits among intermediaries; and 3. Determine areas where government involvement is advisable, be it in the role of facilitator for a private or public distributed ledger, or as a direct central node that applies elements of the technology but retains the monopoly of managing the ledger entries.
This paper presents the design and implementation of a reward system for collaborative care of elderly based on distributed ledger technologies. The work is motivated by the demographic change, where an aging population consequently increases the need for care. This causes a great tension in our society, as care resources become increasingly constrained, both regarding costs and availability of care staff. Much of the daily care of the elderly is today done by family members (spouses, children) and friends, often on a voluntarily basis, which adds to the tension. The core idea of this work is to help broaden the involvement of people in caring for our elderly, enabled by a system for collaborative care. The proposed system benefits from recent advances in distributed ledger technologies, which similarly to digital currencies, are build on the ability for mutual agreements between people who do not know each other. The system also benefits from recent gamification techniques to motivate people to collaborate on a larger scale through performing simple daily tasks. The system builds on rewards automatically given when these smart contracts are fulfilled, a gamification technique that is believed to maintain motivation of the volunteers. In this paper, we thus describe a reward system designed to connect elderly and volunteers by mutual agreements implemented as smart contracts.
This paper introduces a concept of autonomous blockchain based negotiation to select the most convenient electric vehicle charging station. The enabling blockchain technologies are well known fundament of cryptocurrencies, but offer many other possible applications areas, such as automated trusted machine-to-machine transactions, including auctions, bidding and payments. Compared to traditional centralized approaches, such a solution does not require any central entities and can be fully automated, including the payment for the energy. Based on e.g. the planned route, car battery status, realtime traffic information and drivers' preferences, a car could request charging bids from various charging stations along the route, by executing blockchain based smart contracts related to these charging stations. It would then select the most appropriate one based on offered prices, but other input parameters could be also taken into account, e.g. waiting times, estimated charging duration and alike. The smart contract execution could be extended to reservation and payment, too. In the paper we briefly present blockchain technologies, with the focus on Ethereum, and explain the role of smart contracts. We outline the architecture of a simple system for autonomous selection for electric vehicle charging station and provide a UML model to depict the activities of the actors involved in these operations and to clarify the role and the requirements of various blockchain related entities. The aim of our research paper is to outline a possible use-case for a blockchain prototype implementation. The implementation, which is not presented here, will serve for investigation of practical aspects of smart node development and operation, like transaction performance measurements, practical system requirement evaluations and comparison of reliability of various Ethereum clients. By our research we hope to support the investigation of novel applications and blending Internet of things with blockchain technologies, and in particular for elaboration of possible new use cases in the domain of electrical energy and mobility.
El Hassan Et-Tolba, Mohammed Ouassaid, Mohamed Maâroufi
In this paper we give an adaptation of the standard FIPA Contract net Protocol for a multi-agent based smart home simulation. Smart home appliances are controlled by software agents that can communicate their needs and un/satisfaction to the Home Energy Manager Agent. The problem we encountered with FIPA specification is that each interacting agent is either initiator or participant during his life cycle. We propose a solution that allows agents to change their basic behavior and to be dynamical to their whole environment change depending on their requirements. The proposed solution is suitable to manage flexible household appliances such as advancing, delaying, or suspending their operation. Hence it leads to building energy efficiency and enhancing agents' coordination and collaboration for smart grid demand side management.
Car sharing seems to have the necessary characteristics to compete in the fulfilment of the gap between mobility offer and demand at international level considering that an offer exclusively based on collective transport systems is not appropriate to satisfy some of the modern transport needs. Nevertheless it is only after the system reaches an economic equilibrium that it will be possible to include car sharing between the new travelling modes provided to the community without aggravating the already exhausted public finances devoted to mobility. In this sense, this work focuses on the organizational model and particularly on its possible efficiency derived from a transition from the current model made of autonomous Local Units to a centralized model. Therefore the main goal of this work is that of evaluating if the centralization of some service costs and a different organizational structure could create cost reduction with the scope of improving the economic equilibrium conditions. This work shows, through a summary of the main international organizational models and an analysis of the Italian case, how the car sharing system can be managed without public contribution (or with contributions devoted only to the start-up phase) and determine an entrepreneurial reality in the case of the development of a centralized organization and avoiding the presence of a plurality of small local operators. It is therefore desirable that the new car sharing operative realities and the already existing ones with a decentralized nature evolve from a fragmented and local organizational phase towards a more mature phase where there a only a few operators or a unique operator in the market. After a review of the main European models of car sharing organization, the attention is placed on the Italian organizational model and particularly on the possible efficiency increase derived from the transition from the current model organized in different Organizational Local Units (one for each city where the service is active) towards a centralized model. The main goal of the study is then to evaluate in which degree the centralization of some service and structure costs and a centralized organizational structure could provide significant cost containments with the scope of improving the economic equilibrium conditions and to allow a development of an alternative mobility system to that of the private vehicles.
Multi-agent system (MAS) is a common way of exploiting the potential power of agent by combining many agents in one system. Each agent in a multivalent system has incomplete information and is in capable of solving entire problem on its own. Multi-agent system offers modularity. If a problem domain is particularly complex, large and contain uncertainty, then the one way to address, it to develop a number of functional specific and modular agent that are specialized at solving various problems individually. It also consists of heterogeneous agents implemented by different tool and techniques. MAS can be defining as loosely coupled network of problem solvers that interact to solve problems that are beyond the individual capabilities or knowledge of each problem solver. These problem solvers, often ailed agent are autonomous and can be heterogeneous in nature. MAS is followed by characteristics, Future application, What to be change, problem solving agent, tools and techniques used, various architecture, multi agent applications and finally future Direction and conclusion. Various Characteristics are limited viewpoint, effectively, decentralized; computation is asynchronous, use of genetic algorithms. It has some drawbacks which must be change to make MAS more effective. In the session of problem solving of MAS, the agent performance measure contains many factors to improve it like formulation of problems, task allocation, organizations. In planning of multivalent this paper cover self-interested multivalent interactions, modeling of other agents, managing communication, effective allocation of limited resources to multiple agents with managing resources. Using of tool, to make the agent more efficient in task that are often used. The architecture o MAS followed by three layers, explore, wander, avoid obstacles respectively. Further different and task decomposition can yield various architecture like BDI (Belief Desire Intension), RETSINA. Various applications of multi agent system exist today, to solve the real-life problems, new systems are being developed two distinct categories and also many others like process control, telecommunication, air traffic control, transportation systems, commercial management, electronic commerce, entertainment applications, medical applications. The future aspect of MAS to solve problems that are too large, to allow interconnection and interoperation of multiple existing legacy systems etc.
The context of transportation has changed significantly with the globalisation of supply chains, steeply rising fuel costs and further emphasis on environmental performance. Since transportation accounts for an ever larger share of costs, lead times and environmental im-pact, there are increased pressures for more efficient execution.Major tools for improving efficiency are the use of information and communication systems to better plan, monitor and control the transport activities. This calls for reliable data capture, storage, processing and communication. Here, recent hardware and software ad-vancements leading to technologies available at a reasonable price wait to be utilised for distributed decision-making.Road hauliers are currently the subjects of significant pressure to incorporate the new ap-plications into their operations from vehicle suppliers, the government and transport buyers; either directly or via their contracted logistics service providers. Hauliers are generally very small companies operating at a very small (if any) profit margin. They are often not able to employ or develop their own technical competence. Hence, they risk being forced to invest in several costly systems with overlapping functionality; each fulfilling certain needs of their strong counterparts rather than their own.This article takes the road hauliers’ perspective, with the purpose of identifying their need for information and communication support, while analyzing how they are matched with the current supply of technologies. The concept of Smart Freight Transport Systems (SFTS) is developed in a case study setting as a departure from the truck and haulier level. The rendering also departs from what is currently available on the market and what is likely to be available within a five-year timeframe rather than trying to define a highly futuristic view.
Government authority must always rest at the proper locations to respond to the changing times and the changing needs of citizens in a mature society. The division of roles between the public and private sectors, and within the public sector, must constantly be reviewed and clarified. This paper discusses desirable business methods and management structures from the perspective of the division of roles between the public and private sectors in public transportation. Specifically, after discussing the outline of public corporations (in Section 2), the paper examines (in Section 3) standards for the roles of public corporations from the perspective of having the government support and make the greatest possible use of private sector know-how. The paper proceeds to discuss (in Section 4) the governance of public corporations, and then focuses on Japan's public transportation (buses and subways), which provides a relatively unified range of services, to present the current state, impediments to improving efficiency, and effects of reforms. The paper then concludes with the following policy recommendations derived from these discussions. First is the need to reform the division of roles between the public and private sectors. The division of powers needs to be rectified using diverse contract methods to make the greatest possible use of private sector know-how while securing the public interest. However, external governance over both the public and private sectors is required to make these reforms feasible and sustainable. Second is the need to reform the division of roles between the central and local governments. Considering how the unclear division of roles within the public sector is hindering efforts to reform that between the public and private sectors, the division of roles between the central and local governments needs to be clarified. It is desirable that areas which should be under the purview of the central government be financed using a simple subsidy system, with clear standards for guaranteeing funding sources or other involvement; and that areas which should be under the purview of local governments be operated under self-financing by the local governments.
We are concerned with a class of organizations composed of a coordinating central system and plural semi-autonomous subsystems, such that each of them has a decision-making unit. Such a problem is regarded as that of a decentralized two-level optimization. The basic principle of planning for this organization is that the central system allocates resources so as to optimize its own objective, while the subsystems optimize their own objectives using the given resources.Within this framework of decision making, we consider a transportation problem in which N transport agents transport their own commodity. Each transport agent n, n=1, …, N, finds optimal flow patterns of the associated commodity n so that the transportation cost is minimized based on its own objective function under the arc capacity restriction imposed by the central agent. The coordinating central agent governs the transport agents through the way of allocating the arc capacity so that the optimality of whole network system is achieved. Here, the lower level problem is composed of a set of single commodity minimum cost flow problems of the transport agents, each of which can be easily solved separately by the subsystem.The decentralized optimization problem is solved in principle by a parametric approach. A feasible direction algorithm using directional derivative and application of a constraint simplex method are proposed to solve the formulated network flow problem.