Conceptualization of services in The Smart City, a Layered Approach

The concept of the Smart City is becoming increasingly popular. In essence, the added value of a Smart City emerges from the harmony of services that realize the foremost goal of the Smart City, which is high quality of living via improved efficiency of city-relevant processes and citizen engagement. However, the services that form a Smart City are nowadays considered in isolation, both in theory and in practice. Moreover, services on different levels of abstraction (key services vs. supportive services) are often depicted side by side without understanding that one is the supportive pillar for one another. This paper identifies the benefits of an integrated view that not only interconnects the services, but also identifies joint layers that they rely on, which helps us to understand the impact of the underlying IT services and the infrastructure they rely on. At the same time, we extend our view to the Smart Citizen, who plays an essential role in the value creation process within the Smart City.