Exploitable results
Smartcard technology is coming of age. Invented decades ago, these cards with a built-in microprocessor and memory are personal, portable and very secure. They enable holders to enjoy a wide range of services - but are usually limited to proprietary platforms. A pilot scheme running in England shows, for the first time, that a scaleable and open-architecture system could create smart cities across Europe.
Many smartcard schemes rolled out on a large-scale focus on transport. Children receive cards allowing them to travel to and from school on buses at concessionary rates. "But nobody dared to extend such schemes to several different applications or issuers," says Carolyn McKewan, coordinator of the SMARTCITIES project. "Cities or regions would really benefit from this, but they are wary of being tied to a single supplier. They want something scaleable and based on open standards."
SMARTCITIES demonstrates the feasibility of ambitious smartcard schemes. Part of the European Union's Information Society Technologies (IST) programme, this project brings together the English coastal city of Southampton with nine partners. Today some 35,000 people in this mid-sized city hold the latest-generation cards, which offer them access to 14 different applications - including membership and use of libraries, leisure centres and public transport. That figure will rise to 60,000 people by mid-2004.
The cards are used by 32,000 university students for identity purposes and accessing all faculty facilities. Some 3,500 citizens of Southampton can also use their cards to ride on the city's university-link buses. "The aim is to give a card to everyone here, including visitors and people working in the city," adds McKewan. "This technology can do many things. But a city will only use the technology if it can see tangible benefits."
Benefits include easy access to services for cardholders and, in the case of authorities, easier administration of those services. Used intelligently, smartcards can encourage positive behaviour. A partner scheme to SMARTCITIES, running in the north of England, rewards schoolchildren who choose healthy food at lunchtime by giving them extra loyalty points.
Open and welcoming
The project's multi-issuer aspect - both the university and the city now physically issue the cards - is also novel. Others could join the scheme, on condition they came to an agreement with existing service providers. "Our scheme frees the city of worrying about having just a single supplier," says the project coordinator. Her company, Schlumberger, is responsible for overall project management. It led the development of the open system architecture and cards, as well as the application management systems, application software technology and mobile applications.
The open architecture system is noteworthy. "It uses all known smartcard standards, which govern the way the cards work with the terminals," says McKewan. "We have designed a card-scheme architecture and defined an Application Programming Interface (API) by which any application, old or new, can be put on the card."
Essentially, this is a plug-and-play platform that includes mobile download of applications to the card and upload of value to the open e-purse. "This is a scheme concept and an architecture, not a fixed solution," says McKewan. "Cards, terminals, applications and car-management systems can be procured from any source - subject to the compliance to the API and other established standards." She underlines the strong business case for the SMARTCITIES system: "It provides card-level interoperability, freedom of supplier choice and is both proven and replicable."
Other cities are impressed by the results of the open model being implemented widely. Dundee, in Scotland, has adopted the project's logo on its own smartcards while Reykjavik, in Iceland, plans to adopt both the concept and logo. A complementary IST project, EUCLID, is looking at the use of smartcards to establish people's digital identity in several countries in Europe.
Not everything has flowed smoothly. The project's original goal was to enable mobile download of applications to the cards through a dual-slot mobile phone supplied by Motorola. When this company pulled out of the project, the remaining partners had to find an alternative solution. Downloading is now done using a card reader attached to a personal digital assistant (PDA) device.
Spreading the message
"It has been a challenge getting different cities from all over Europe to listen to us, because there are many smartcard schemes around," recalls McKewan. However she is confident the Special Interest Group (SIG), formed in 2001, will promote the project's results through workshops and conferences. It today has a membership of some 70 local authorities throughout Europe, which have all validated the model. The group was relaunched as an independent membership organisation in Tampere, Finland at the Telecities event on e-democracy and Smart Cities, on 25-27 June 2003 and will ultimately organise itself as a standards and accreditation body.
The Southampton-based project is one of 25 Pathfinder projects, under which the UK government is testing innovative use of e-government services. Southampton City Council - which is partnered with a smartcard scheme for schools, leisure centres and transport in England's Tyneside region - was awarded Pathfinder status in 2001.
E-government is receiving increasing attention at the European level, with a conference on the subject from 7-8 July 2003 in Como, Italy. This event will assess the current status and future of e-government in Europe, focusing on the benefits of online service provision for citizens and businesses. It is designed to stimulate the uptake and dissemination of best practices and provide a framework to address e-government issues in the eEurope 2005 Action Plan. The conference will also host the first-ever winners of the eEurope Awards for Innovation in eGovernment.
Besides the establishment of an open system using the broadest existing standards, McKewan is most proud of the legal work done under the project. A Belgian university research centre, the Crid, has resolved the issues around data-privacy legislation in the context of multi-application usage data. A smart move, by anybody's standards.
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