Challenges of IoT in Smart Cities: Issues and Risks

This report focuses on the challenges of the application of internet of things in smart cities. It highlights the major problems of an IoT based smart city and provides efficient risk management techniques to mitigate the risks and challenges.

Running head: INTERNET OF THINGS
Internet of things
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1INTERNET OF THINGS
Executive Summary
This paper is to focuses on the challenges of IOT in smart cities. The document is prepared in
such a way so that the readers can know about the functionalities internet of things in a smart
city in a detailed way. The use of internet of things is increasing every day; we are using IoT
in a wide range of activities due to its effectiveness and reliability. The increasing application
of the internet of things is the main reasons behind the challenges which are being faced by
the organisations that are incorporating this technology. Due to its wide acceptance different
unethical issue are associated with this technology. This report highlights all the major
problems of an IoT based smart city.

2INTERNET OF THINGS
Table of Contents
Executive Summary...................................................................................................................1
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Background of applications of IoT in smart city.......................................................................3
Challenges of IoT in smart cities...............................................................................................4
Problems of IoT in smart cities..................................................................................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................6
Reference....................................................................................................................................8

3INTERNET OF THINGS
Introduction
The prime objective of this report is to focus on the challenges of the application of
internet of things in smart cities. The four different types of modules of a smart city where
internet of things is applied are sensing, networking, analysis and control (Mohanty, Choppali
& Kougianos, 2016). The internet of things is used to connect all the possible physical
objects, this technology allows to sense different sorts of phenomena and control them in an
effective way (Scuotto, Ferraris & Bresciani, 2016). The different challenging areas where
smart cities are applied are smart buildings, smart energy grids, smart automobiles, water
distribution lines, environmental monitoring, wearable sensors, protection of security and
privacy of citizens of the smart city (Sun et al., 2016). This report will be focussing on the
different types of issues and challenges faced by the smart cities using internet of things
(Rathore et al., 2016).
Background of applications of IoT in smart city
Smart
homes
Smart
parking
lot
Healthcar
e industry
Weather
and water
systems
Transport
managem
ent
system
Environme
ntal
pollution
Surveilla
nce
systems
Demand
response
Car
managem
ent
Tracking Weather
condition
Camera
monitoring
Greenhouse
gas
monitoring
Violence
detection
Fire
detection
technolog
y
Departure
and
arrival of
automobil
es
Identificat
ion of
issues
Water
quality
Environme
nt
monitoring
Energy
efficiency
monitoring
Public
place
monitorin
g
Temperat
ure
controllin
g systems
Mobile
ticketing
Data
gathering
Water
leakage
Travel
scheduling Renewable
energy
usage
People
and object
tracking

4INTERNET OF THINGS
Security
systems
Environm
ent
monitorin
g
Sensing Water
level
Traffic
jam
reduction
Air quality
monitoring
CCTV
Social
network
supportin
g systems
Traffic
congestio
n control
Equipmen
t used in
operation
theatres
Water
contaminat
ion
Assisted
driving
Noise
pollution
monitoring
Traffic
Police
Table 2: IOT application in a smart city
Created by the author
Challenges of IoT in smart cities
o Privacy and Security: It is a foremost point of discussion in the IoT based systems in
a smart city (Höller et al., 2014). Systems using IoT are vulnerable to significant
vulnerabilities such as data leakage, multitenancy, cross side scripting and side
channels, effective measures should be taken to cope up with those issues (Boulos &
Al-Shorbaji, 2014). Maintenance of the security of those advanced systems is also an
important parameter regarding the usage of IoT in smart cities as the attackers are
always using advanced improvised techniques in the cyber-attacks (Fortino &
Trunfio, 2014).
o Heterogeneity: This is one of the major challenges of smart cities (Avijit &
Chinnaiyan, 2018). Effective procurement report is very much important for
maximum utilization of the IoT based systems (Stankovic, 2014).

5INTERNET OF THINGS
o Reliability: Organisations involving a huge amount of smart systems are prone to
reliability issues which should be taken special care of by the organisations using the
technology (Botta et al., 2016).
o Legal and social aspects: The service provided by different kinds of IoT based
system are based on different national and international laws which are needed to be
followed in order to be completely secure from the external attacks (Jalali, El-Khatib
& McGregor, 2015).
o Big data: This is the biggest challenges of an IoT based smart city (Gonzalez &
Rosillo, 2015). The service provided by the IoT based system should be monitored as
much as possible as essential information is transmitted to open source networks
which can be easily hacked by professional hackers (Ejaz et al., 2017).
o Sensor networks: All the IOT based systems uses the sensor networks to enable the
systems for different types of activities such as measuring, interfering, understanding
environmental indexes (Zanella et al., 2014).
o DR barriers: There are different kinds of barriers which can have an impact on the
IoT based systems (Li, Da Xu & Zhao, 2015). The three key set categories of DR
barriers are as followings:
 Framework barriers: The applications of framework barriers are in the
suitable electricity market, regulation and policies of organizations and
communication limits (Centenaro et al., 2016).
 Providers barriers: It includes convincing the customers and making
incentives for effective function of the advanced IoT based system in a smart
city (Alur et al., 2016).

6INTERNET OF THINGS
 Customer barriers: The issues related with customers regarding IoT are lack
of knowledge and huge investment required (Bonomi et al., 2014).
Problems of IoT in smart cities
o Hacker attacks: There are different types of problems in IoT based smart city (Hui,
Sherratt & Sánchez, 2017). Different types of cyber-attacks lead to data loss for the
organisations, use of malicious software’s, phishing attacks are very much harmful
and one of the key problems of a smart city (Wang et al., 2016).
o Data ownership risk: Storage of data in local server or in cloud server has numerous
kinds of issues associated with smart cities (Jin et al., 2014). A centralized control
system which used for data storing application processing and application storage
have numerous issues related to the internet of technology as any single fault may
lead to entire system failure (Ranjan, 2016).
o Data hacking: This is the unethical problem of IoT based smart city (Mehmood et al.,
2017). This is the other type of problem in a smart city which incorporates the internet
of things due to its vast associated with different types of networks (Bonino et al.,
2015).
o Public trust: The other vital problem regarding smart cities is public trust (Vlacheas
et al., 2013). IT is an important problem regarding the usage of the different kinds of
activities, as many people are unaware of the new progresses in the field of science
and technology (Perera et al., 2014). Digital disruption is the other type of challenge
faced in a city using the internet of things (Ahlgren, Hidell & Ngai, 2016).

7INTERNET OF THINGS
Conclusion
From the above report, it can be concluded that there is different type of issues related
to use of internet of things in a smart city. All the risks and challenges can be mitigated using
efficient risk management techniques and these will lead to greater efficiency and
productivity for the organization where these technologies are incorporated.

8INTERNET OF THINGS
Reference
Ahlgren, B., Hidell, M., & Ngai, E. C. H. (2016). Internet of things for smart cities:
Interoperability and open data. IEEE Internet Computing, (6), 52-56.
Alur, R., Berger, E., Drobnis, A. W., Fix, L., Fu, K., Hager, G. D., ... & Rexford, J. (2016).
Systems computing challenges in the Internet of Things. arXiv preprint
arXiv:1604.02980.
Avijit, K., & Chinnaiyan, R. (2018). IOT for Smart Cities.
Bonino, D., Alizo, M. T. D., Alapetite, A., Gilbert, T., Axling, M., Udsen, H., ... & Spirito,
M. (2015, August). Almanac: Internet of things for smart cities. In Future Internet of
Things and Cloud (FiCloud), 2015 3rd International Conference on (pp. 309-316).
IEEE.
Bonomi, F., Milito, R., Natarajan, P., & Zhu, J. (2014). Fog computing: A platform for
internet of things and analytics. In Big data and internet of things: A roadmap for
smart environments (pp. 169-186). Springer, Cham.
Botta, A., De Donato, W., Persico, V., & Pescapé, A. (2016). Integration of cloud computing
and internet of things: a survey. Future Generation Computer Systems, 56, 684-700.
Boulos, M. N. K., & Al-Shorbaji, N. M. (2014). On the Internet of Things, smart cities and
the WHO Healthy Cities.
Centenaro, M., Vangelista, L., Zanella, A., & Zorzi, M. (2016). Long-range communications
in unlicensed bands: The rising stars in the IoT and smart city scenarios. IEEE
Wireless Communications, 23(5), 60-67.

9INTERNET OF THINGS
Ejaz, W., Naeem, M., Shahid, A., Anpalagan, A., & Jo, M. (2017). Efficient energy
management for the internet of things in smart cities. IEEE Communications
Magazine, 55(1), 84-91.
Fortino, G., & Trunfio, P. (Eds.). (2014). Internet of things based on smart objects:
Technology, middleware and applications. Springer Science & Business Media.
Gonzalez, G., & Rosillo, V. (2015). Study and Deployment of Sensor Networks and the
Internet of Things in the GDL Smart City. IEEE Guadalajara GDL CCD White
Papers.
Höller, J., Boyle, D., Karnouskos, S., Avesand, S., Mulligan, C., & Tsiatsis, V. (2014). From
machine-to-machine to the internet of things (pp. 1-331). Cambridge: Academic
Press.
Hui, T. K., Sherratt, R. S., & Sánchez, D. D. (2017). Major requirements for building Smart
Homes in Smart Cities based on Internet of Things technologies. Future Generation
Computer Systems, 76, 358-369.
Jalali, R., El-Khatib, K., & McGregor, C. (2015, February). Smart city architecture for
community level services through the internet of things. In Intelligence in Next
Generation Networks (ICIN), 2015 18th International Conference on (pp. 108-113).
IEEE.
Jin, J., Gubbi, J., Marusic, S., & Palaniswami, M. (2014). An information framework for
creating a smart city through internet of things. IEEE Internet of Things journal, 1(2),
112-121.
Li, S., Da Xu, L., & Zhao, S. (2015). The internet of things: a survey. Information Systems
Frontiers, 17(2), 243-259.

10INTERNET OF THINGS
Mehmood, Y., Ahmad, F., Yaqoob, I., Adnane, A., Imran, M., & Guizani, S. (2017). Internet-
of-things-based smart cities: Recent advances and challenges. IEEE Communications
Magazine, 55(9), 16-24.
Mohanty, S. P., Choppali, U., & Kougianos, E. (2016). Everything you wanted to know about
smart cities: The internet of things is the backbone. IEEE Consumer Electronics
Magazine, 5(3), 60-70.
Perera, C., Zaslavsky, A., Christen, P., & Georgakopoulos, D. (2014). Sensing as a service
model for smart cities supported by internet of things. Transactions on Emerging
Telecommunications Technologies, 25(1), 81-93.
Rathore, M. M., Ahmad, A., Paul, A., & Rho, S. (2016). Urban planning and building smart
cities based on the internet of things using big data analytics. Computer
Networks, 101, 63-80.
Scuotto, V., Ferraris, A., & Bresciani, S. (2016). Internet of Things: Applications and
challenges in smart cities: a case study of IBM smart city projects. Business Process
Management Journal, 22(2), 357-367.
Stankovic, J. A. (2014). Research directions for the internet of things. IEEE Internet of
Things Journal, 1(1), 3-9.
Sun, Y., Song, H., Jara, A. J., & Bie, R. (2016). Internet of things and big data analytics for
smart and connected communities. IEEE access, 4, 766-773.
Vlacheas, P., Giaffreda, R., Stavroulaki, V., Kelaidonis, D., Foteinos, V., Poulios, G., ... &
Moessner, K. (2013). Enabling smart cities through a cognitive management
framework for the internet of things. IEEE communications magazine, 51(6), 102-
111..

11INTERNET OF THINGS
Wang, M., Perera, C., Jayaraman, P. P., Zhang, M., Strazdins, P., Shyamsundar, R. K., &
Ranjan, R. (2016). City data fusion: Sensor data fusion in the internet of
things. International Journal of Distributed Systems and Technologies (IJDST), 7(1),
15-36.
Zanella, A., Bui, N., Castellani, A., Vangelista, L., & Zorzi, M. (2014). Internet of things for
smart cities. IEEE Internet of Things journal, 1(1), 22-32.