# Enabling Technologies for Urban Smart Mobility: Recent Trends, Opportunities and Challenges
## 5 Enabling Technologies to Support Smart Mobility  
### Overview of Enabling Technologies  
Smart mobility is a growing trend due to the advent of several technologies and concepts that, when combined, allow us to think of solutions that will effectively make a difference in the future in terms of new products and new data processing algorithms and techniques that will provide useful information to the citizens, in order to provide more autonomy and more well-being in their daily lives. There are several enabling technologies that can facilitate the smooth adoption of smart mobility. Figure 9 shows these technologies [117; 118; 119; 120; 121; 122; 123]. Blockchain: Blockchain technology can provide a privacy preserved, transparent and trustless architecture for mobility services for inhabitants. Blockchain based Internet of Vehicles (IoV) architecture can be created for improved interaction and communication between vehicles as well as improved tracking and management of traffic within smart cities. Smart Sensors and IoT: Intelligent and energy efficient sensor technology can be effective for sensing and collecting real time traffic and mobility data of the vehicles as well as the inhabitants to provide effective mobility management. Smart sensor-based streetlights and traffic signals can autonomously make intelligent decisions on the basis of real time situations to facilitate the smooth management of traffic. Artificial Intelligence (AI): On the basis of the data collected from different sources, AI based algorithms can be developed to provide autonomous decisions as well as future predictions about different mobility related services and entities, such as the conditions of roads, traffic, and streetlights. Additionally, data centric AI algorithms can be used by organizations for customer centric target marketing. Geospatial Technologies: Intelligent geospatial technologies can provide accurate information for the tracking and tracing of vehicles and citizens. These technologies can also facilitate alternative routes management in case of emergencies and disasters. Figure 9: Enabling technologies to support smart mobility. Big Data: Big Data forms the backbone of the smart city ecosystem. The enormous amount of data generated from the sensors and IoT devices can provide valuable information about the subject and its surroundings. This information can be used to extract valuable information. Clean Energy: Smart mobility must be complemented by clean energy alternatives. Clean energy sources such as solar energy, wind energy, hydro energy and biomass, etc., must be adopted to provide zero-emission fuels to power the smart city ecosystem. Figure 10 shows how some of these concepts can contribute to smart mobility services and infrastructures, starting from the hardware-level gathering data based on an IoT layer composed of several devices on multiple levels; next, an aggregation layer with Big Data and the creation of datasets with a huge amount of data; and finally, the processing of that information using AI that will also allow the prediction of trends and support decision making. All this combined allows the delivery of end services to citizens to improve mobility in smart cities. The concept of Big Data is an emerging term that is gaining more and more emphasis given the technological evolution we are witnessing and the heterogeneity of systems and sensors that emerge and which apply to various domains. At its base, this concept is intrinsically linked to the existence of large volumes of data, collected from various sources and, therefore, heterogeneous. The relevance of Big Data only arises when information processing techniques are applied to these data so that predictive information and pattern analysis can help them in making decisions.