Position Paper at: ComplexRec2020 – Fourth Workshop on Recommendation in Complex Environments @ RecSys2020. 25.09.2020.

1. Making Sense of the Urban Future:
Recommendation Systems in Smart Cities
Position Paper
ComplexRec2020 – Fourth Workshop on Recommendation in Complex
Environments @ RecSys2020. 25.09.2020.
Dr. Dirk Ahlers
Smart Sustainable Cities Group
NTNU – Norwegian University of Science and Technology
https://www.ntnu.edu/employees/dirk.ahlers

2. 2 Making Sense of the Urban Future: Recommendation Systems in Smart Cities

3. 3 Making Sense of the Urban Future: Recommendation Systems in Smart Cities
Guiding Question
Recommender
Systems
Smart Cities
Cities, Citizens,
Data, Systems,
Integration
What will change from a RecSys perspective once we have a
Smart City surrounding us?
What are opportunities, mutual benefits, new options,
viewpoints, requirements, risks, …?

4. 4 Making Sense of the Urban Future: Recommendation Systems in Smart Cities
Smart City definitions
• Many definitions depending on view, role, discipline, sector,
domain, country, …
• Combination of physical, digital, services, infrastructure
• Dimensions of technology, people, institutions
A Smart City is a dynamic complex socio-technical system-of-
systems that integrates information and communication
technology into its structure to manage and improve its
planning, services, and operations towards a livable city.

5. 5 Making Sense of the Urban Future: Recommendation Systems in Smart Cities
Smart City Strategies
• Open ecosystem, not only driven by municipality
• Sustainable and livable urban futures
• Enabling urban change
– Environmental, economical, societal, technical challenges
– Increase sustainability, resilience, livability
– Improve services, enable new services
– Digital transformation, digitalization
– Real-time city understanding
• Scalable and transferable solutions
• Combination of low- and high-tech solutions
• Integrated solutions, not only ICT

6. 6 Making Sense of the Urban Future: Recommendation Systems in Smart Cities
Smart City–RecSys
Application Domains
• Location-aware
recommendations, POIs, Events
• LBSN
• Tourist/route recommendations
• Mobility, transport, EVs
• Smart Home uses
• (Io)Things recommendation
• Social learning/Communities/SN
• Context-aware services
• Smart urban environments
• Sustainable behavior
• City planning/decision support
• Service discovery
• Personal assistants
• Integrative systems
Data Sources
• POI and event data
• Mobility options
• Social Networks
• User interactions
• Mobility traces
• IoT/sensors
• City maps/survey data
• Photos/(CCTV)
• City services
• (City) Open Data
• Emergent sources

7. 7 Making Sense of the Urban Future: Recommendation Systems in Smart Cities
Challenges & Opportunities
Smart City
Recommender
Handling
complexity
Evaluation
User
involvement,
co-creation
…
Individual
vs.
community
targets
Cross-
Domain
integration
Data
integration and
interoperability
Scenario-
based
approaches
Context-
awareness
Citizens,
Users,
Stakeholders
Privacy
…
…

8. 8 Making Sense of the Urban Future: Recommendation Systems in Smart Cities
Takeaways
• Smart City is a challenging cross-domain scenario
• Yet underspecified complex domain
• New opportunities and requirements arising
• Make cities more livable, sustainable, understandable!
Cities, Citizens,
Data, Systems,
Integration

9. 9 Making Sense of the Urban Future: Recommendation Systems in Smart Cities
Q&A
Contact
Dirk Ahlers
search://Dirk Ahlers
@dirkahlers
dirk.ahlers@ntnu.no
[https://complexrec2020.aau.dk/?page_id=40]