A study in www.brusselsstudies.be, the e-journal for scientific research, examines the factors that favour and inhibit the deployment by public services of mobile apps to help make the Brussels Capital Region a smart city.
Smartphones and the mobile services and apps that run on them /have become the predominant interface between citizens and the so-called ‘Smart City’. This however, poses difficulties for cities and local governments that are faced with a plethora of new challenges in a changing public service context.
The Brussels Studies paper provides nine inhibiting and contributing factors that form initial steps in re-thinking what cities in general, and Brussels specifically, should focus on in their efforts to becoming ‘smarter’, with mobile as a key starting point.
Brussels Studies is an online academic journal with wide-spread dissemination intended to promote research centred on Brussels-related issues. The author of the paper is Nils Walravens, researcher at iMinds-SMIT (Studies on Media, Information and Telecommunication - Vrije Universiteit Brussel).