Technology roadmap for building a smart city: An exploring study on methodology

Based on qualitative case studies, this paper investigates the process of building a smart city roadmap, providing an example of such a roadmap along with some policy recommendations for cities. A 3-phase-process is developed where first literature is reviewed and based on common criteria development cases from 80 cities are gathered. The 2nd phase builds up a technology inventory for the selected cases. The 3rd phase is the expert prediction phase for technology maturity, in which technology development predictions are used to establish the causal relationship between a technology and the timing of its application. This process produces a technology roadmap which is then used as the basis for organizing smart city technologies and applications into four ascending layers: Sensor, Integration, Intelligent, and Application. The result is a blueprint for the application of smart city technologies. In addition, 36 smart city experts were surveyed to assess the maturity of and connection between smart city technologies, markets, and industries. Current smart city developments can then be ascertained to provide recommendations on smart city development. This preliminary forecast and analysis of smart city technologies can be applied to related industries to gain a general understanding of trends in the development of key technologies and applications.