Triangulum City Dashboard: An Interactive Data Analytic Platform for Visualizing Smart City Performance

Abstract

Cities are becoming smarter by incorporating hardware technology, software systems, and network infrastructure that provide Information Technology (IT) systems with real-time awareness of the real world. What makes a “smart city” functional is the combined use of advanced infrastructure technologies to deliver its core services to the public in a remarkably efficient manner. City dashboards have drawn increasing interest from both city operators and citizens. Dashboards can gather, visualize, analyze, and inform regional performance to support the sustainable development of smart cities. They provide useful tools for evaluating and facilitating urban infrastructure components and services. This work proposes an interactive web-based data visualization and data analytics toolkit supported by big data aggregation tools. The system proposed is a cloud-based prototype that supports visualization and real-time monitoring of city trends while processing and displaying large data sets on a standard web browser. However, it is capable of supporting online analysis processing by answering analytical queries and producing graphics from multiple resources. The aim of this platform is to improve communication between users and urban service providers and to give citizens an overall view of the city’s state. The conceptual framework and architecture of the proposed platform are explored, highlighting design challenges and providing insight into the development of smart cities. Moreover, results and the potential statistical analysis of important city services offered by the system are introduced. Finally, we present some challenges and opportunities identified through the development of the city data platform.