Visual Aid Systems from Smart City to Improve the Life of People with Low Vision (original) (raw)

Advancement of the Contemporary City-Application of Smart City Technologies in Sarajevo

Current Advances in Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences Vol. 7, 2022

Many countries around the world are becoming more aware of climatic changes, rising pollution, and resource scarcity, forecasting their impact on humanity's future and proposing solutions to slow down these processes. The concept of resilient and smart cities has gained enormous popularity as a result of the widespread urbanization of our planet. And while some nations are still at a theoretical level, others are already taking action since they have better developed thinking and technological capabilities as well as a higher awareness of the significance of this issue. The UN has set the 2030 Agenda with 17 Sustainable Development Goals and the European Union gives guidelines on how cities across Europe can improve to become more sustainable and resilient for future social and natural challenges. This text introduces several good examples of various actions taken in European countries to make their cities more resilient, sustainable, and enjoyable to live in. In contrast, the concept of resilient and smart cities is still in its infancy in the cities of developing European countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina. The authors introduce Sarajevo's potential as well as smaller projects that are starting points in the process of improving the city's habitat, climate, and transformation into a smart and sustainable city. The objective of this work is to show how each city, no matter its size, geographical location or the economic development can implement certain projects towards the sustainability. The aim is also to give hints through the introduction of several European examples how things can be done in Sarajevo in future. The conclusion, provides a comparison between the achievements of other European cities and examples from Sarajevo, offering ideas for future projects that could be implemented in the city in anticipation of becoming a better living place for its inhabitants.

Smart city", man and architecture

E3S Web of Conferences

The article is devoted to the problem of introducing the concept of a "smart city" into the life of modern cities. The authors consider a "smart city" in terms of its architectural and urban planning qualities, as well as meeting the needs of citizens. The issues of the formation of a new architecture corresponding to the challenges of a “smart city” and development of historical cities in the context of information technologies are analyzed. The authors reviewed the dynamics of the implementation of the provisions of the concept of a "smart city" in the cities of Russia.

Smart cities in Central and Eastern Europe: viable future or unfulfi lled dream?

Journal of International Studies

Th e objective of the paper is to analyse the state of implementing the idea of smart cities in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) by identifying the most widely used smart solutions on its area. Th e authors give defi nitions of a smart city and indicate the variety of methods and tools for implementing the concept in practice. Th en they focus on selected rankings of smart cities and examine a few successful examples of smart initiatives from CEE. As a result of the analyses, the authors state that the philosophy of a smart city is to identify and implement the most effi cient ways of providing public services in cities. Th e authors also found that in spite of the fact that CEE cities are not European leaders in terms of the ongoing smart initiatives and rankings of smart cities, within their territories smart solutions are implemented increasingly and more eff ectively. Th e authors indicate that the main advantage of implementing intelligent solutions in CEE cities might be building their brands and thereby encouraging the infl ux of new residents, investors and tourists. Although these solutions are not a comprehensive set of management tools for authorities of a city, smart cities are slowly becoming reality in CEE.

A Vision of a Smart City Addressing the Needs of Disabled Citizens

There were 42 million disabled people aged 15– 64 in the EU-27 in 2012. The urban population is increasing, and has according to United Nations Population Fund already exceeded 50% of the global population. Cities are becoming more and more complex. City governments face challenges in designing fully inclusive city services, spaces and information. These still tend to be designed in a way to fit the needs of an active, fully abled person, thus excluding a great number of citizens with impairments. With this article we contribute to the issues raised; first, by proposing a four-dimensional model towards addressing the complexity of the societal challenges; second, by elaborating a holistic Vision of a Smart and Inclusive City, and finally as a part of this vision, by proposing a concept of a holistic modular digital tool, namely Social Cooperative Monitoring Tool to support the inclusiveness of the city.

Retrofitting the Public Transport System for Visually Impaired Users in Smart Cities

—These Visually impaired people have difficulty in using public transport system , in order to reduce the problem faced by visually impaired people in most of the smart cities ,we developed a system consists of an user module and a bus module to establish a communication between the users and buses in smart cities. When the user gives a one digit number as an input, the user module sends a request to cloud. The cloud compares the request number to the bus number having the nearest location of the user and a bus and gives information to the user and a bus driver. The user will get the information about the bus location and if the desired bus reaches the bus stop, it gives information to the user through voice playback. When the bus module receives an information, it gives a buzzer and the location of the user is displayed in LCD in the bus, which can be notify by the bus driver that the visually impaired people is waiting in the particular location to board to the bus. The hardware prototype was implemented using Arduino uno in both the user Module and Bus module.

Trends in the Application of the Concept of Smart Cities in the Western Balkan Countries

Ecologica

The concept of creating smart infrastructure, as well as the use of available resources and potentials leads to the idea of creating smart cities. The development of this concept implies the implementation of development trends related to life in the cities of the Western Balkans, but also the development of unique solutions that will assimilate development trends and enable their availability and use by citizens living in the city, which is the basic hypothesis of this research. The subject of this paper includes data collection through a survey of employees in various city administrations in Belgrade, Nis, Kragujevac, Trebinje, Podgorica, Herceg Novi, Skopje, analysis of collected data, and making unique conclusions and solutions to the survey. The aim of this paper is to point out the importance and significance of the concept of smart cities on the basis of relevant literature and available indicators obtained by the research, and to determine the extent to which it is implemented in urban administrations in the Western Balkans. The results of the research indicate that despite the cities in which significant progress is noticeable in the implementation of strategic solutions of smart cities, there are still noticeable problems in their implementation in the Western Balkans.

A Smart City for the Blind: Marburg as a Case Study (book chapter)

Developing and Monitoring Smart Environments for Intelligent Cities, 2021

In this chapter, the authors present the German city of Marburg as an alternative model for the conception of a smart city. Marburg's historical relation with its visually impaired citizens has shaped not only its infrastructure but also its human framework. Generally, smart cities are equated with world-class major metropolitan areas, with international airports, use of high band internet, internet of things, and other IT infrastructures. However, Marburg might be considered a smart city according to other criteria. This case study articulates the uniqueness of what Marburg has been able to achieve using a diverse approach of cultural acceptance of the blind, becoming a world reference for other small cities. The authors suggest that Marburg can serve as a model for other cities. This hypothesis was reached through critical investigations into concepts of smartness and disability, intersected with the insights obtained in a focus group interview.

Smart city solutions in regard to urbanization processes – Polish cases

Logistics & Sustainable Transport, 2015

The aim of this paper is to show the spectrum of problems associated with the growing importance of cities in the context of rapidly occurring processes of urbanization. Therefore the following issues are included: the concept of smart cities, which are a combination of the intelligent use of information systems allowing for active management of the various areas of urban activity with the potential of institutions, companies and the active involvement and creative people; transport problems and the use of new technologies. Particular attention will be given to both, the issue of transport congestion as the strongest factor affecting the quality of life of residents and to the role of social capital in the creation of sustainable development. To exemplify the result of the cooperation between southern Polish communities there will be presented a case of the introducing process of the Silesian Card of Public Services with a wide range of its functionality.