For nearly three decades, becoming smart has been claimed to be a solution to urban problems. This claim is justified, but not unconditionally. This article aims to contribute to the development of a human-centric smart city agenda, which in effect means the application of social and ecological principles, in conjunction with appropriate technology. In order to achieve this goal, smart city literature has been critically assessed for its contribution to the agenda. Five narratives that represent different ways of framing the role of (digital) technologies in solving urban problems have been summarised and commented on. It was concluded that the use of (digital) technology should be preceded by examining the complexity of social and ecological problems of contemporary cities. This vision resulted in a re-conceptualisation of the smart city concept into a city that aligns the use of technology with its human-centric agenda. Kate Raworth' concept of a doughnut economy has proven useful in designing such an agenda. This concept is based on the simultaneous application of principles related to social and environmental sustainability, resulting in an agenda of 39 ‘city actions’ for cities that intent to be humane by choice and smart by default.

The concept of ‘new retail’ proposed by Alibaba is gradually getting recognised and being practiced by the world-leading e-commerce enterprises and traditional retailers, further, it will result in the reconfiguration of retail formats around the world. As a new retail benchmarking enterprise incubated by Alibaba, HEMA fresh has attracted extensive attention from domestic and foreign media and business circles. Based on the typical new retail format of HEMA fresh food initiated by Alibaba, ‘fresh supermarket + catering experience + online business warehousing’ innovative business model, this study systematically analyses the reconstruction path of new retail format driven by new technology, and finds that customers, goods and scenes are the three leading elements in the reconstruction process of new retail format. These three elements evolve and match with each other under the support of a new technology environment, creating new consumption scenarios for consumers. Finally, this study looks forward to the future of the new retail industry.

This study presents a review of smart light-emitting diode (LED) lighting systems applied to smart buildings. The study is focused on drivers, protocols, technologies, communication networks and applications. An extended overview of the methodologies used for LED lighting control in smart buildings is addressed. The study also presents an integrated architecture able to achieve the necessary services and control methodologies for intelligent building energy management system for LED lightings systems in smart buildings.

It is highly desirable that traffic controllers or city residents can discern regular patterns and promptly detect irregularities or abnormal events in a public transportation system. This study proposes a web-based information system that allows users to study the travel behaviour of bus passengers from various perspectives. The system uses data from the comprehensive set of Taichung City Bus Riding Records between 2015 and 2016. However, it can provide the same functionality to any other similar bus transportation system by using the appropriate data. It should be emphasised that the system can provide the frequency distributions not only of passenger trips between two stops but also of the passenger volume for a given segment of any route. Owing to the increased computational and storage-capacity requirements of the proposed system, the scalable Hadoop MapReduce programming model was used. Furthermore, bus companies can use the system to design better service plans, such as more flexible bus schedules and more convenient routes, to meet passenger demand as well as reduce operation cost and energy consumption. The authors believe that the proposed system can make a valuable contribution to public welfare.

Smart campus, as a high-end form of a smart education system and a mini-scopic version of a smart city, has received increasing research and attention globally. The existing smart campus concepts are mostly technology-driven, which simply introduces interconnection from a technological perspective to serve its residents but not necessarily adhering to the needs and interests of stakeholders in such a community. To fill this gap, this study presents a human-centred approach for smart campus design and development, where a user case survey study is undertaken in Hong Kong primary and secondary schools. The overall aim of the survey is to accurately and timely capture and understand the perspectives of school stakeholders on education applications in the context of the smart campus. The findings from survey analysis are presented, with insights and suggestions for future smart campus development provided. The findings in this study are also expected to result in a benchmark reference of the smart campus concept for international educational providers, government, and technology companies that will deliver smart solutions.

Electricity theft is a notable aspect of power distribution utilities due to advance in the non-technical loss. It results imbalance between power supply and demand. It consequence overload of the distribution network and extraneous tariff invoke on legally connected consumers. The advance metering infrastructure is useful for an energy audit of every distribution transformer due to a communication facility. However, direct hooking on distribution overhead line or tapping from underground cables remains an interminable issue which has to be rigorously decimated. The objective of this study is to present real-time electricity theft detection and prevention scheme (ETDPS) with the available infrastructure in the field. The proposed ETDPS is based on programmable logic control; it identifies the pilferage locations and estimates the power stolen by illegal consumers. The prototype is tested in the laboratory and the results demonstrate that the ETDPS works satisfactorily under diversified operating conditions. The proposed scheme is implemented as a part of their Smart City Pilot Project by Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited, Nagpur (India) and the performance demonstrates its feasibility.