Public Value Creation through Smart Cities Mobility

2017

Within the growing literature on smart cities, much research has focused on issues related to the formation stage and the roles of different actors in these initiatives. The large number of failures of smart city initiatives, however, points at an existing gap between the understanding of the formation of these initiatives and the practice of their management. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to address this research gap by discussing determinants of smart city initiatives and the experiences in smart city management. By taking an innovation ecosystem perspective, the paper focuses on the management experiences of four smart city initiatives (WoonConnect, Mobilty Portal, Vehicle2Grid, Straatkubus) in the Netherlands. The empirical research has been undertaken during the period May and June 2016. In linking to the discussion on smart cities, the research shows that most studies on smart cities have focused on the formation stage of the initiative and the roles of partner...

Information Systems Frontiers

Technical progress is disrupting the mobility sector. New door-to-door (D2D) mobility integrators promise to offer smart mobility by packaging together different mobility services such as car-sharing and public transport. However, mobility providers up to now have rarely entered into value co-creation relationships. As a result, citizens are offered mobility that cannot be considered truly smart. Although value co-creation has been the subject of numerous studies taking the service-dominant logic perspective, this research has often lacked empirical evidence. To close this gap, we conceptualize value co-creation between mobility providers and a D2D mobility integrator by applying Activity Theory. Based on a qualitative study in the German mobility sector, we identify several inhibitors of value co-creation from the viewpoint of mobility providers. In addition, we show how these inhibitors serve as triggers for adaptations, ultimately leading to the formation of a value co-creation relationship.

Information Systems Frontiers, 2016

By using ICT in an innovative way, governments can improve the delivery of services and interaction with stakeholders. Open data is a way to help public organizations became more open and improve interaction with stakeholders. This paper aims to identify what are the public values enhancements acquired on smart city environment that discloses open data. We propose a conceptual model to analyze the smart city initiative. We contextualized the model taking a smart city domain by analyzing three related-initiatives that comprises open data in a smart city case carried at Rio de Janeiro Operations Center (COR) in Brazil by seven deepinterviewees directly involved-from inside and outsidein this case. The findings reveal evidences that open data initiatives contribute to enhance the delivery of public value in smart city contexts.

Journal of Service Science and Management

Starting from the definition of smart cities, characterized by flexible information processes, innovation facilitation mechanisms, smart and sustainable solutions and platforms, the new urban scenario highlights the creation of value as the core purpose and the central process of exchange between actors. According to this consideration, the present work aims at re-reading smart cities in the light of value co-creation practices, trying to capture the factors that local administrators can leverage to pursue a more acute development of local communities. The work follows an exploratory approach by using, in particular, the single case model (holistic), with the purpose to analyse the value co-creation practices (Frow et al., 2014) in the context of smart city. Specifically, the city of Turin has been chosen, focusing on the initiative promoted along with the Torino smart city Foundation. Eight value co-creation practices are identified, in order to determine the set of attributes leading to the transformation process in smart cities. In addition, for each type of practice specific measures are identified. The work offers insights to improve the results pursued in different areas of administrative life. In fact, value co-creation practices highlight that an adequate combination of activities carried out by administrators, citizens-users, technology and other players in social life leads to improved performance in the urban sector. Furthermore, the work underlines the importance of value-added practices as tools to facilitate the involvement of several social actors, who are differently interested in contributing to the definition of processes of value generation. The innovative nature of the work arises from the authors' choice to analyse the theoretical background on practices in terms of co-created value and to connect these practices to smart cities, enabling arriving at a conceptual result steeped in value for scholars and practitioners interested in both business management and technology engineering.

2018

The world is facing unprecedented levels of urbanization (Dirks & Keeling, 2009). Half of the world population resides in cities, while ten per cent (10%) lives in only 30 metropolis (Dobbs et al., 2011). In 2008, 75% of the European population lived in urban areas, while this percentage is expected to rise to 80% by 2020 (United Nations, 2011). Even though cities occupy less than 2% of the earth’s land, urban inhabitants consume more than 75% of the natural resources available worldwide (Marceau, 2008). Moreover, the urban population is expected to double from 2.6 billion in 2010 to 5.2 billion in 2050 (United Nations, 2011). Cities are already facing numerous challenges that are bound to increase due to rapid urbanization.

BAR - Brazilian Administration Review, 2021

This study addresses the public value theory from the perspective of smart cities and aims to propose the validation of a framework from the citizen's perception and the principles of public value generation from the perspective of smart cities. For its development, the principles of the OECD were related to the characteristics of smart cities for the elaboration of a questionnaire, using the five-point Likert scale, which was applied to 256 residents of the city of Natal. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and the exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis technique. The results show that even when the citizen has not contributed to the elaboration of the principles for the generation of public value, he/she recognizes the importance of the theme for the delivery of better public services. As a contribution to managers and society, it is suggested more investment in education and knowledge of citizens about the importance of their participation and use of digital services, raising the level of user maturity to the level of maturity of government actions. As an academic contribution, the scale theoretically represented and statistically validated contributes to the continuity of studies on public value, as a key element for governance in smart cities. As an opportunity for future research, the application of the tool in other cities is suggested to establish comparisons, as well as research involving the maturity of respondents, as users of digital government services and their knowledge of public value, for a better alignment between government and citizen.

2019

With smart city and e-government (electronic government) initiatives striving for increased levels of citizen participation, public managers continue to search for a way to increase the utilization of Information Technology (IT) services. However, most efforts focus on linking operations and IT services, rather than facilitating greater means of citizen engagement in government service development (Granier & Kudo, 2016). Furthermore, few studies examine the effect of citizen engagement, particularly in relation to the New v Information Communication Technology (NICT), or the smartphone mobile application. These smartphones and their associated mobile applications are quickly becoming one of the primary tools for smart cities worldwide in delivering their government services. According to Moore's theory of public value generation by managers, both a value chain and an authorizing chain are needed to create value associated with the authorizing environment (legitimacy and support) and resources needed (operational capabilities) to create value (performance). Therefore, this study asks, "Does the development of smartphone mobile application technology that proceeds according to Moore's public value management theory lead to greater levels of ownership associated with these smart city services and a willingness to co-productively engage and participate with future applications?" Specifically, it utilizes a case study of the City of Boston and a mixed-method approach that consists of a survey to 425 City of Boston-specific application users and 16 application developers in the city to examine its central research question. The qualitative interview findings show that government authorizers and application developers are primarily motivated to ensure that applications are continuously utilized when they are being developed. Further, components of awareness campaigns surrounding the application are tied to the notion of garnering usage and building a sustained user base. By ensuring this, the degree to which two-way communication proceeds between developer and user is extensively mentioned as also being of importance. The results of the logistic regression show that value generation and a user's likelihood to engage with future applications is motivated primarily by the ease of use of the application, their prior experience with other vi City applications, and whether they had been a contributor to prior City of Boston applications. vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my advisor and committee chair, Dr. Aroon Manoharan, who has guided me through my doctoral studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston. You have provided me with numerous opportunities to enhance my skills during our time together, and without your guidance, this journey would not have been possible. Looking back at the last four years, the opportunities we had to collaborate have truly been one-of-a-kind. I am thankful every day that we were matched together, and I look forward to many more collaborations in the future. To Dr. Daniel Bromberg, my friend and colleague, thank you for consistently pushing me in my research and for the advice and numerous opportunities with which you provided me. You acted as my mentor when I needed it most and guided me toward a path that challenged me at every turn and allowed me to grow in many ways. To Dr. Michael Ahn, thank you for always being there to answer my questions, even before I began my program at the university, which ultimately led me to pursue this degree. Thank you as well for challenging me throughout my e-government studies to realize my potential as a scholar. Also, completion of this project would not have been possible without the support and dedication of my classmates and doctoral cohort: Drew, Caitlin, George, Jeff, Marcia, Bridget, and Katelyn. We were always there for each other through all the ups and downs, and I could not have asked for a better 2015 cohort to be a part of. Thank you as well to the Department of Public Policy, which guided me through this journey and provided me with the opportunity to grow as a scholar.

2016

Transforming urban mobility requires integrating public with private services into a single transportation system. Local governments and private companies face the challenge of how to coordinate themselves. An emblematic example is one-way carsharing (shared use of a fleet of vehicles that are typically free-floating throughout an urban area). Surprisingly, good practices for public and private players driving this change remain relatively undocumented. This paper proposes a systematic and balanced public-private approach to foster transportation innovation management. We review both public policy and business management literature and build a framework to help local governments and companies innovate together (organizational structures, project management processes, and profitability assessment tools). We use this framework to examine both public and private experiences through a case study analysis with five one-way carsharing services in Europe (Paris, Munich) and the United-Stat...

Research in Transportation Business & Management, 2019

The growing number of public transportation agencies partnering with Mobility on Demand (MOD) or Mobility as a Service (MaaS) companies raises the question of what role MOD companies can, should, and currently play in the provision of public transport. In this article, we develop a typology reflecting 62 MOD public-private partnerships (MOD PPPs) in the United States and present lessons learned. We conducted 34 interviews with representatives from four MOD companies and 27 public agencies. The interviews spanned October 2017 to April 2018. The resulting MOD PPP typology consists of four service models: 1) First-Mile/Last-Mile (FMLM), 2) Low Density, 3) Off-Peak, and 4) Paratransit. The typology also includes two MOD asset contribution models: 1) Agency-Operated MOD and 2) Agency-Subsidized Private MOD. Lessons learned for limiting competition with fixed-route public transit include: a) if agencies have sufficient resources, they can generally maintain greater data access and control over the service with Agency-Operated MOD than Agency-Subsidized Private MOD; b) public agencies can supplement the Agency-Operated MOD model with Agency-Subsidized Private MOD during peak demand; c) public agencies sometimes encourage FMLM transfers to fixed-route public transit by creating service zones that divide trip generators and attractors and assigning one or two designated transfer stops to each zone; and d) one approach to protecting fixed-route public transit is to restrict Low-Density MOD services to trips that start and end outside a geofenced fixed-route service area.

2014

Smart cities have gained momentum as a conceptual model which embodies a fresh wave of techno-optimism and emphasizes the positive effects of ICT and other innovative technologies in a city, often in combination with multidisciplinary collaborative partnerships. This article assesses a series of six smart city initiatives within one local city ecosystem by proposing a conceptual framework which is then used to analyze the architecture, value flows and contextual dimensions of the smart city Ghent. The results of our analysis show the multi-level collaborative value creation potential in a smart city and shed light on the complexity of these processes. The main conclusion is that current smart city initiatives face the challenge of evolving from demonstrators towards real sustainable value. Smart cities often have a technological deterministic, project-based approach, which forecloses a sustainable, permanent and growing future for the project outcomes.