1 Introduction

Smart cities as defined by Cisco are those who adopt “scalable solutions that take advantage of information and communications technology (ICT) to increase efficiencies, reduce costs, and enhance quality of life” [1]. With rapid influx of people into cities every year, there is a growing interest in Iot investments by companies and the need to deploy smart city solutions. Being smart is about redefining processes and engaging citizens. And this includes all its citizens, especially people with physical limitations. Our proposed solution of inclusive smart cities is targeted towards the city of Milan in Italy with government help. 6.6% of the Italian population faces physical limitation [2]. The government provides assistive technology to its citizens on national, local and municipal level. It also has a list of approved appliances that are distributed and recommended for use. The city of Milan has taken positive steps to make public spaces and facilities friendly for people with physical limitations. But the lack of accessibility and navigation still largely persists with an inherent stigma in the Italian population.

2 The Present Landscape

We observed and spoke to people with physical limitations about their routine and experiences. According to our findings, they are plagued by fear of deviation from a fixed routine, are hesitant to ask help from strangers, reliant on dedicated caregivers, have a feeling of exclusion and unwelcome, with dependence on tangible or intangible navigation guides. Compared to general public, their tendency to go out is considerably lower with a frequency of less than 20% to go to shops for buying necessities and goods. Moreover, they feel that their opinions are unheard with minimum to no participation in decision making.

These concerns arise due to the inability to record and use the real problems because of unavailable tools. Social interactions are almost non-existent leading to misconstrued perceptions. The city administration also faces geographical and budget constraints in changing the existing infrastructure. These can be overcome by incorporating digital technologies and using different connectivity solutions (LoRA) to develop participatory mechanisms for co-designing smart city solutions.

With the above considerations, we have designed the We Care system focusing on their accessibility for basic requirement of visiting shops. Our focus on the shops stems from the fact that out of 11000 shops in Milan, only 2,000 meet the accessibility standards. The key participants of our solution are the people with physical limitations, their caregivers, shop-owners and the general public with government as the regulatory body at the centre.

3 The Solution System

We Care system starts in the government offices where the users are given the We Care devices. All of the users (people with physical limitations, caregivers and shop-owners) have to fill a form that states the agreement terms for privacy and usage of their information. We envision to follow the secure and efficient solutions/protocols deemed fit for a smart city [3]. After this, our primary user (people with physical limitations) would receive the wearable band with the emergency button. Each band has a unique serial number that identifies the user. On pressing the button, it signals for help which gets transmitted to nearby shop devices and mobile applications and is stored by the government for data collection.

The We Care shop device is a small box with led lights, thermal printer and a push button. Through this, shop-owners receive notifications of help as the leds emit lights in two different colors (green and red) indicating the proximity of the person. Red light indicates the person is less than 25 m away and green light indicates that he/she is 50 m away. On pressing the push button, the shop-owner accepts to help the person and receives the printed specifications of estimated time to reach, distance, location (printed map/turn-by-turn navigation). The personal details of the person in need to assistance is not divulged with only type of disability mentioned. As the shop-owner accepts to help, the person in need is notified that the helper is on his way through vibrations in their wearable device.

To collect, preserve and identify problematic areas for the users with physical limitations, the information gathered from the wearable devices is stored in the government database, mapping the city according to the type of limitation.

The mobile application, includes two different sections: one for the designated caregiver and the second one for the citizens. For the caregiver, it provides intimation in case of a sudden attack(fall) or when the user long presses the ‘help’ signal on the wearable. Whereas, citizens are informed if there is someone nearby who needs assistance mobile application notifications (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1.
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We Care system map

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4 Digital Connectivity

The connectivity of the We Care system is powered by connection with LoRaWan as it is being used by governments of Europe. It metes the requirements for the connectivity with the (IoT) internet of things.

The location signal from the wearable device embedded with GPS chip can be connected over a wireless network by the LoRaWan MQTT which with IP connection goes through LoraWan Gateway that acts as a bridge allowing the access to internet. Here, the information goes directly to the data base server, that processes and converts the information (algorithm calculation) provided by the device.

In the cloud the information is distributed using internet in the shop store device, government data base and mobile application. These devices receive the information and send it back using internet that connects to the server forming a bi-directional communication that facilitates processing of small data (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2.
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We Care connectivity between devices

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5 Implementation and Results

We prototyped and tested the We Care devices with the real users in context, i.e., the people with physical limitation on their way to the shops. The following are the built prototypes (Figs. 3, 4 and 5).

Fig. 3.
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Render and prototype of the wearable band

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Fig. 4.
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Render and prototype of the shop device

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Fig. 5.
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Information visualization of collected data

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The initial test users had a warm response to adoption of this solution. The average mean time response time for help providers was of 3 min that we are trying to improve as a work in progress. While the wearable device lacks advanced and personalized features of other wearable devices in the market for people with physical limitations, it becomes a generic solution to city accessibility (Figs. 6 and 7).

Fig. 6.
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Mobile application for the citizens

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Fig. 7.
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Mobile application for the caregivers

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6 Value and Potential

Our solution proposes collection of data from direct sources, the users making it humanistic. The information gathered by the government will help in the profiling of problems based on geography and limitations while promoting accurate and innovative solutions. By the way we manage city data and infrastructure; we will co-create an improved living environment.

This solution also relies on community participation that creates empathy and supports social inclusion. The people with physical limitation have greater independence with easy access to shops and increase in their social interaction.

For shop-owners, it comes with possible tax benefits, increase in potential clients and an option to alternate accessibility without infrastructure remodeling and investment.

With more research and iterations, the device in the shops has the potential to be replicated in different domains such as transportation modes, public buildings etc. As a whole, it is an affordable, collaborative, digital smart city digital solution with a high market potential that can be replicated on the guidelines of Sharing Cities [4].