Streets perform a number of important functions and have a wide range of activities performed in them. There is a small but growing focus on streets as a more generalizable, atomized, and therefore more manageable unit of development and analysis than cities. Despite the public realm being one of the largest physical spaces on streets, the impact and potential of digitalization projects on this realm is rarely considered. In this article, the smartness of a street is derived from the cyber-physical social infrastructure in the public realm including data obtained from sensors, the interconnection between different services, technologies and social actors, intelligence derived from analysis of the data, and optimization of operations within a street. This article conceptualizes smart streets as basic units of urban space that leverages cyber-physical social infrastructure to provide and enable enhanced services to and between stakeholders, and through stakeholders’ use of the street, generates data to optimize its services, capabilities, and value to stakeholders. A proposed conceptual framework is used to identify and explore how streets can be augmented and create value through cyber-physical social infrastructure and digital enhancements. We conclude with a discussion of future avenues of research.

The diffusion of ICT to improve the subsystems in the lived environment and meet the needs of people and communities is only going to increase in importance and proliferation. Research on so-called smart city technologies and cyber-physical social systems is hindered by reductionist approaches and access to real-world city-scale testbeds. In this article, we focus on the street as a more feasible starting point and building block for smart city research and propose a general framework for conceptualizing smart streets as a cyber-physical social platform. The conceptual framework presented in this article provides a means for exploring the complexity of a street as a system of systems without necessarily adhering to a specific technological solution or reference architecture. The underlying motivation for this article has been to raise awareness, stimulate discussion and propose some initial avenues of research. In this respect, we believe the concept of smart streets as cyber-physical social platforms opens up exciting new avenues for research not only for computer scientists but those from urban engineering, cognitive sciences and social sciences to collaborate in an inter- and multidisciplinary way to explore and populate with clarity and depth.

References available upon request.