Smart Cities’ Applications to Facilitate the Mobility of Older Adults: A Systematic Review of the Literature

Abstract

This study aimed to identify: (i) the relevant applications based on information technologies and requiring smart cities’ infrastructure to facilitate the mobility of older adults in URBAN SPACES; (ii) the type of data being used by the proposed applications; (iii) the maturity level of these applications; and (iv) the barriers TO their dissemination. An electronic search was conducted on Web of Science, Scopus, and IEEE Xplore databases, combining relevant keywords. Then, titles and abstracts were screened against inclusion and exclusion criteria, and the full texts of the eligible articles were retrieved and screened for inclusion. A total of 28 articles were included. These articles report smart cities’ applications to facilitate the mobility of older adults using different types of sensing devices. The number of included articles is reduced when compared with the total number of articles related to smart cities, which means that the mobility of older adults it is still a not significant topic within the research on smart cities’. Although most of the included studies aimed the implementation of specific applications, these were still in an early stage of development, without the assessment of potential end-users. This is an important research gap since it makes difficult the creation of market-oriented solutions. Another research gap is the integration of knowledge generated by other research topics related to smart cities and smart mobility. Consequently, important issues (e.g., user privacy, data standardization and integration, Internet of Things implementation, and sensors’ characteristics) were poorly addressed by the included studies.

Systematic literature review of context-awareness applications supported by smart cities’ infrastructures

“…Just 15% of the studies included a user-centred evaluation, either a minimally working version of the applications (i.e., [86,94,97]) or a real-world evaluation by end users in their daily context during a certain period (i.e., [96]). Therefore, this systematic review of the literature shows that the applications reported by the included studies have a low maturity level and are still far from consolidated solutions, which was also identified by other studies related to smart cities' applications (e.g., [55]).…”

“…Several articles published in scientific journals [1, 3, 10, 25-28, 32, 33, 35-56] reported different types of reviews, including systematic literature reviews, related to various aspects of smart cities' implementation: (1) bibliometrics (e.g., bibliometric analysis of the literature of the first decades of research on smart cities [20,39] or identification of the conceptual dimensions and areas of smart cities based on bibliometric analysis [10]); (2) international standards (e.g., identification of relevant smart cities standards [48] or review of the standardisation activities that are being carried out by the United for Smart Sustainable Cities initiative [44]); (3) data analytics (e.g., the various data learning techniques being applied in smart cities [41] or big data applications to support urban environment, society, and sustainability [46]); (4) systems architectures (e.g., the contribution of the enterprise architecture towards digital transformation in smart cities [49]); (5) data security (e.g., identification of the barriers and hurdles in smart city and how these hurdles might be mitigated by the blockchain technology [45]); (6) IoT and data analytics (e.g., identification of key areas of application, current trends, data architectures, and ongoing challenges of the application of IoT and data analytics in smart cities [50]); (7) ontologies (e.g., how ontologies are being used to support smart city services [51]); (8) healthcare (e.g., relevant smart cities applications with impact in the provision of healthcare [42]); (9) energy efficiency (e.g., identification of the barriers to the progression to sustainable smart cities [52]), (10) citizenship (e.g., how public displays may foster citizen participation in addressing urban issues [23]); (11) smart city indicators (e.g., identification of potential indicators for implementing smart cities [22] or provision of a critical analysis of smart city assessment tools and their potential contribution to the evolution of the smart city movement [15]); (12) mobility (e.g., systematization of enabling technologies, current trends and solutions to support smart mobility [53] or smart city applications to facilitate the mobility of older adults in urban spaces [55]); and ...…”

Security Mechanisms of a Mobile Health Application for Promoting Physical Activity among Older Adults

“…Given that smart cities' infrastructures are public and easily accessible, it is important to robust security mechanisms to guarantee the privacy, integrity, and confidentiality of personal data. Even though many research studies identify privacy as a significant issue in smart cities, there is evidence [24] that the issues arising from the use of personal mobile and wearable sensors by applications addressing the mobility of older adults in smart cities (e.g., [10][11][12][13][14][15][16]), and for promoting healthy lifestyles in particular [17,18], are under-researched. Additionally, the privacy issues related to the gap among the digital competences of older adults and the privacy management requirements of mobile applications and related problems have not been conveniently solved yet [16].…”

“…Despite the importance of data privacy, integrity, and confidentiality, the smart city developments aiming to promote the mobility and physical activity of older adults do not conveniently address these questions [24], as can be observed in various studies [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. Therefore, the present study aimed to contribute with solutions to surpass this gap.…”

“…During a walk, various types of data are collected by the users' smartphones and the sensors connected to them [23], which are stored and made available for consultation by healthcare providers to prepare personalized recommendations. Systems aiming to constantly monitor individuals' activities such as the SmartWalk have the potential of putting the privacy of their users at risk, since personal data are transferred through the internet [24]. Therefore, secure data transmission together with the guarantee that the stored data should only be accessed by people who are authorized are important requirements.…”