Standards Development

Scope

This document describes and analyses a comprehensive set of high-level scenarios of how smart cities can best respond to public health emergencies, and strengthen their “Urban Immune System”, using evidence from as many countries as possible. It covers use cases related to the prevention, the control and the successful ending of public health emergencies, and to dealing with the longer-term harm that these may cause. It considers a wide range of different scenarios and reviews both the management challenges and the range of technology solutions, including the use of IoT, 5G, AI, Big Data, and Cloud Computing, available in each of them, in order to provide a comprehensive outline of the standardization requirements to develop an effective Urban Immune System.

The public health emergencies envisaged are those relating to pandemics resulting from novel forms of disease, for which there is no natural immunity within the population and no tried and tested treatment. However, some of its provisions will be helpful to dealing with pandemics of existing diseases such as typhoid and cholera brought on through natural disasters or war.

This document will provide useful information to International and national Standards Development Organizations and thus facilitate and promote the development of the smart city standards required.

Purpose

At the time this document is being written, cities and countries are working hard to tackle the global pandemic of Covid 19. Many important lessons are being learned and shared around the world. However, there is a danger that these lessons will be forgotten once the pandemic has run its course. The aim of this document is to facilitate the incorporation of these lessons into international standards, while they are still fresh in people’s minds. These standards could then be used to strengthen global and city “immune systems” to help cities be better prepared to tackle the next public health emergency.

The specific rational for this piece of work is that a whole range of different solutions and processes will be needed, requiring the specialist expertise held within many different Standards Development Organisations and Technical Committees. Without starting from a comprehensive overview, the likely outcome will be that standards will be developed in isolation from each other, leading to important gaps in provision and the promotion of a siloed approach. This Systems Resource Deliverable will enable Standards Development Organisations to more easily identify the full range of needed standards that are within the scope of their expertise and ensure that a consistent and complete portfolio of standards will be developed.