Digitization of towns in concepts such as “Smart Cities” pose a new challenge for software engineering. Software is usually developed for selected target groups, represented as personas with clear requirements. But solutions for cities or smaller towns affect all its inhabitants directly, so that performing stakeholder identification and prioritization based on characterizations such as personas will not do justice to all these stakeholders. Conversely, the government, industry and citizens of each town have specific interests, properties and needs, which can and must be understood when realizing new solutions for a town. This paper proposes a new elicitation and analysis method in the form of a so-called Vicus, through which a town can be characterized by gathering relevant information about a town. The Vicus facilitates the generation of new creative ideas as well as the reuse of already successfully implemented solutions in towns that reveal similar patterns in their characterization.
Software engineering traditionally has built software solutions for specific customers and specific target groups of users. This includes software applications for particular businesses (e.g., an ERP system) or specific purposes (e.g., a bookkeeping app). Even software “for everyone” assumes a selection effect, in which particular types of users are more likely to install, for example, a game or graphics editing software. As a result, there still is a prioritization of certain user types who are served by certain use cases. Digitalization has resulted in new and broader target groups. For example, approaches towards “Smart Cities” that serve an entire city must focus on all citizens, not just prevalent subgroups. Think for example of an improved waste disposal system or technical approaches towards improving the infrastructure. Not addressing all classes of citizens will exclude subgroups that are also directly affected.
Developing solutions for an entire town (from smaller settlements to metropoles) is costly. Not only must it address many stakeholders at once, but it requires the use of a creative approach due to the innovative nature of these new solutions. We assert that the possibility of reusing solutions that were already successfully applied in another town will save costs, because the labor-intensive process to deploy a solution in one town does not have to be repeated as such. However, due to inherent differences between towns, a successful implementation in one town does not necessarily transfer in the same way and form to another. For example, between a town with a supermarket nearby and another where the nearest supermarket is 5 kilometers away, the need for a grocery delivery service will be quite different, and may additionally be affected by the mobility of the inhabitants, depending on their age and public transportation options. Thus, in order to determine what solutions from other towns best fit the needs of a town’s inhabitants, town-specific aspects must be understood so it can be assessed if these towns share relevant characteristics. We may then be able to predict that the configuration of solutions of the one town can be replicated in the other town with minor tweaks, by which the existing implementation serves a basis for fast rollout with further tailoring made after deployment.
However, it is unclear what characteristics of a town affect the acceptance and
functional appropriateness of digital solutions. Moreover, experiences from project contexts
have shown that is challenging to elicit concrete needs from citizens and determine
fitting solutions with them using survey techniques [
A creativity approach is required in order both to facilitate idea generation with citizens and to enable the analyst to infer similarity patterns from particular knowledge and observations. Similar to design patterns and software architectural patterns [8], the concept of software requirement patterns exist. However, an appropriate pattern similarity identification approach for the reuse of proper solutions for a particular town in another town by the application of clustering and classification methods is still needed.
In this paper, we will present initial ideas to formalize the approach of characterizing towns through a template that we coin as Vicus. With this paper containing a representative example of an envisioned use of the Vicus, we would like to provide a basis for discussions in order to obtain feedback on the idea of the Vicus, by which we will make a first step towards answering the following research questions: RQ1a: What are suitable characteristics to typify a town by? RQ1b: Where do we get which information for which purpose?
RQ2: How can the use of a Vicus facilitate creativity in stakeholder discussions and analysis sessions?
RQ3: How can demands of a town be predicted and fulfilled before issues arise? This paper is structured as follows: chapter 2 presents related work, and chapter 3 the methodology on how we elaborated the current proposal for a characterization of towns, along with an exemplary characterization using a Vicus. This is followed by an outline of the expected benefits in chapter 4, a presentation of possible application contexts in chapter 5, and currently open questions and challenges in chapter 6. We conclude in chapter 7.
The persona [
One way of making a comparison is to follow a traditional Business Intelligence approach. For example, when a parts manufacturer has to decide between three potential locations for the new logistics center, an analyst will gather facts, make calculations and present a proposal. We assert that the challenge of developing ideas for the digital enhancement of towns can also be assessed by gathering knowledge about the respective towns. But due to the many social aspects, observational data are needed as well, so that the degree of similarity can be measured or estimated. 3
To characterize a town and facilitate the elicitation of town requirements, we propose the “Vicus”, a template similar to a persona, but with adapted contents to account for the specific characteristics of a town. In order to systematically and consistently document relevant information, the initial content categories for a Vicus have been created in several steps. First, we obtained an overview of typical publically available information on towns, such as typical demographics (e.g., number of citizens, classification of citizens according to age, tendency of demographic development) and election results. We then held an internal expert workshop with people with prior experience in the performance of digitalization projects in rural areas. Here, we elicited what knowledge we would need to successfully assess a town on its digitalization potential. This knowledge includes the actual needs of the citizens in different districts, resources of the local industries to improve their production processes, and the government that aims to improve town’s educational, industrial, residential and infrastructural aspects. We will have to identify for and from which stakeholder this information is required 1 http://data.amsterdam.nl/ (e.g., the number of bus stops can be obtained from public information and is required for assessing the public transport system), and which contents of personas can be reused in the Vicus. We compared the workshop’s results with the gathered information to identify which aspects that help understand town-specific characteristics were missing.
Along with the content categories of the exemplary Vicus, a set of guidelines for the elicitation of their contents has been established. This is a combination of some preparatory work to collect data online, requesting information from the local government, and direct interactions with relevant stakeholder groups (e.g., inhabitants, local industry and representatives of the administration). These content categories form an initial draft that we propose as starting point for further investigations, discussions and evaluations.
To illustrate the envisioned benefits of a Vicus and predictive analytics, we will use the example of the unsatisfactory mobility situation in “Anytown”. Using a Vicus, among others the information in Table 1 was gathered, consisting of factual data and observations. This elicitation of the as-is situation revealed problems for two of the three dominant age categories. Middle-age adults commute by car or bus, mostly to the nearby city. However, senior citizens have difficulty reaching the points of interests in town, while youth have difficulty taking a bus home at night from the city after a night out with their friends. A Vicus for a comparable city provided a fitting solution that worked very well in the other town. Because of the already decreasing citizen count, the local bus system could not be expanded as this would make public transportation too cost-intensive. Instead, the bus system was expanded and made more flexible by adding smaller busses on demand. Their routes are adapted to the citizens’ specific needs. A route calculation system calculates the best route and the best time for the busses to pick up citizens. In the mornings and afternoons, the youth are transported to and from school, and in between senior citizens have a faster connection to the center, the graveyard and the shopping center at the outskirts of town, and night connections bring partying youth and visitors to concerts, cinemas and theaters back home from the city at night. Citizens are informed about the time and the place when and where the next bus can pick them up. Based on the Vicus, an alternative solution that was proposed, which suggested a mobility concept based on car sharing, could be excluded for not being suitable for Anytown because commuters own a car and the public transportation is mainly being used for age groups who do not or may not drive a car. 4
The Vicus is a template that analysts such as requirements engineers, interaction designers, and process experts can use as an analysis tool to obtain a better understanding of a town before making decisions about improvement measures. Potential benefits of a Vicus particularly include the solution reuse through predictive analytics as well as its use as a trigger for public creativity.
The primary benefit of a town characterization in form of a Vicus is the possibility
of reusing solutions and countermeasures applied in towns with similar characteristics
to towns in which these solutions and countermeasures were successfully applied. The
needs of a town’s inhabitants and the applicability of solutions can facilitate an early
detection of reuse potential through a systematic application of the Vicus. This potential
is only given if a Vicus has already been created for a town with similar characteristics.
However, we also see application potential within towns for which a Vicus was already
identified and known to the groups of stakeholders. One possible use is the
identification of threats for the town to unperceivably slide into an undesired situation, with the
possibility of specifying countermeasures for this threat. Another possible use in
addition to the Vicus presenting the actual (as-is) situation is to specify a secondary Vicus
that describes a desired (ideal) situation. A comparison of the two Vici, which would
currently be manual but which could be supported by algorithms in the future, enables
identifying the gap between the two representations, and measures can be defined to
reduce this gap (akin to Higgins’ self-discrepancy theory [
With the help of predictive analytics of Vicus data, desired situations can be achieved and undesired situations avoided. Predictive analytics analyzes statistical data of particular causes, effects, interdependencies, and impacts of events. This includes techniques such as clustering, classification, regression analysis, and association analysis.
This has several benefits. From a societal viewpoint, the appropriate countermeasures can be introduced faster to prevent the population from being dissatisfied due to unfulfilled needs, the local industry can expect a competitive advantage by better understanding the complex economic relationships, thereby making better founded decisions. Finally, the government can better control the development of the town by steering the settlement of people and businesses, but especially of the satisfaction of inhabitants.
Although simple issues and solutions can be revealed through short interviews of the stakeholders in the town, complex coherences can be revealed easier with the help of predictive analytics. The amount of data that have to be analyzed to detect new patterns and coherences is provided by a vicus, but the amount of data must grow in order to increase the potential success of the predictive analytics. 5
In the scope of “Smart Cities”, many initiatives are specific to one city, for which the
Vicus could help determine collaboration potential with organizations in other cities
and other countries, and the transfer potential of existing solutions. However, we not
only see potential for large cities where solutions have already been implemented. Due
to wide-scale urbanization and in comparison to the benefits that cities can offer, rural
towns often face a decline in their attractiveness for individuals, families and businesses
to settle and stay there [
As the Vicus is still in a conceptual state, we still face several challenges and open questions. We composed an initial set of criteria that are used for characterizing municipalities, but more research is needed to elaborate and detail the set of criteria. For this purpose, the discipline of urban development and planning can provide valuable inputs. We also identified that objective and structured measures (e.g., number of inhabitants) do not provide sufficient data to make strong inferences about the similarity between two towns. This is why subjective measures (e.g., observations) are needed, though this may threaten the validity of such observations. Moreover, if these observations cannot be formalized by a certain structured, it may not be possible to compare such observations. Open questions remain the time and effort required to elicit the relevant information for a Vicus, and which degree of detail of each content category is required for which kind of analysis (e.g., generating ideas vs. predictive analysis). Lastly, the Vicus has been designed for analyzing towns in rural areas. What changes must be made to 2Digital Villages, see www.digitale-doerfer.de 3Electronic Village, see www.edorf.bayern the content categories of the Vicus so it can also be applied in urban(ized) areas remains to be established. 7
The usage of personas as a creativity trigger supports the generation of ideas to solve potential inferred problems of typical representative stakeholders. We have sought to provide an approach that allows the assessment of towns similar to a persona. Two large projects aiming at the typing of towns in Germany4 took local politics and socio-economic and demographic factors into account, and created two of the most substantial collections of typed towns and villages in existence with 125 typified villages and 3,000 typified towns, respectively. However, a concrete involvement of citizens to reveal innovation potentials or to predict municipal challenges by a supported joint communication between government, industry, and citizens does not take place in these projects.
Recent initiatives to improve the quality of life in cities and rural areas through digitalization required means to assess how well innovative ideas transfer to other areas. The Vicus is a proposed solution to collect relevant information on towns in a structured way, so that it can serve as a creativity trigger for identifying unsatisfied needs in these areas along with the appropriate digital solutions to address these needs. Moreover, the Vicus can support predictive analyses in which the characteristics and needs of towns can be compared to determine the reproducibility and viability of existing solutions in another town before these are being deployed. In future work, the Vicus should be specified and evaluated systematically through case studies in order to measure and quantify the benefits it can deliver. We intend to further develop, apply and evaluate the Vicus concept within research projects in the nearby future. 8