Using Delay Tolerant Networks as a Backbone for Low-Cost Smart Cities

Rapid urbanization burdens city infrastructure and creates the need for local governments to maximize the usage of resources to serve its citizens. Smart city projects aim to alleviate the urbanization problem by deploying a vast amount of Internet-of-things (IoT) devices to monitor and manage environmental conditions and infrastructure. However, smart city projects can be extremely expensive to deploy and manage. A significant portion of the expense is a result of providing Internet connectivity via 5G or WiFi to IoT devices. This paper proposes the use of delay tolerant networks (DTNs) as a backbone for smart city communication; enabling developing communities to become smart cities at a fraction of the cost. A model is introduced to aid policy makers in designing and evaluating the expected performance of such networks. Preliminary results are presented based on a public transit network data-set from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Finally, innovative ways of improving network performance in a low-cost smart city is discussed.

I Introduction

Urbanization, which refers to the migration of people from rural areas to urban communities, has increased rapidly in the past few decades placing an extra burden on the infrastructure in urban areas [1]. Policy makers are thus tasked with finding more effective methods for managing limited public resources to meet the needs of its citizens. Smart city initiatives have been proposed as a way to alleviate the challenges arising from urbanization. Smart cities projects involve the deployment of a vast number of Internet-of-things (IoT) devices across communities to monitor and manage environmental conditions and infrastructure. However, transforming a city into a smart city has proven to be very expensive, for example, cities such as San Diego, New Orleans, London, and Songdo have either proposed or invested in smart city projects that cost between $30 Million and$40 Billion [2]–[5]. As a result, financing smart city projects is a major challenge that limits its implementation [6], [7]. Therefore, finding ways to significantly reduce the cost of transforming traditional cities into smart cities is critical.