A Web-Based Application for Smart City Data Analysis and Visualization

Smart cities are urban areas that use contemporary technology to improve citizens’ overall quality of life. These modern digital civil hubs aim to manage environmental conditions, traffic flow, and infrastructure through interconnected and data-driven decision-making systems. Today, many application...

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Main Authors: Panagiotis Karampakakis, Despoina Ioakeimidou, Periklis Chatzimisios, Konstantinos A. Tsintotas
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2025-05-01
Series:Future Internet
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/17/5/217
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author Panagiotis Karampakakis
Despoina Ioakeimidou
Periklis Chatzimisios
Konstantinos A. Tsintotas
author_facet Panagiotis Karampakakis
Despoina Ioakeimidou
Periklis Chatzimisios
Konstantinos A. Tsintotas
author_sort Panagiotis Karampakakis
collection DOAJ
description Smart cities are urban areas that use contemporary technology to improve citizens’ overall quality of life. These modern digital civil hubs aim to manage environmental conditions, traffic flow, and infrastructure through interconnected and data-driven decision-making systems. Today, many applications employ intelligent sensors for real-time data acquisition, leveraging visualization to derive actionable insights. However, despite the proliferation of such platforms, challenges like high data volume, noise, and incompleteness continue to hinder practical visual analysis. As missing data is a frequent issue in visualizing those urban sensing systems, our approach prioritizes their correction as a fundamental step. We deploy a hybrid imputation strategy combining SARIMAX, <i>k</i>-nearest neighbors, and random forest regression to address this. Building on this foundation, we propose an interactive web-based pipeline that processes, analyzes, and presents the sensor data provided by Basel’s “<i>Smarte Strasse</i>”. Our platform receives and projects environmental measurements, i.e., NO<sub>2</sub>, O<sub>3</sub>, PM<sub>2.5</sub>, and traffic noise, as well as mobility indicators such as vehicle speed and type, parking occupancy, and electric vehicle charging behavior. By resolving gaps in the data, we provide a solid foundation for high-fidelity and quality visual analytics. Built on the Flask web framework, the platform incorporates performance optimizations through Flask-Caching. Concerning the user’s dashboard, it supports interactive exploration via dynamic charts and spatial maps. This way, we demonstrate how future internet technologies permit the accessibility of complex urban sensor data for research, planning, and public engagement. Lastly, our open-source web-based application keeps reproducible, privacy-aware urban analytics.
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spelling doaj-art-0d9c685aa76e479eade642de465cc9f52025-08-20T03:47:57ZengMDPI AGFuture Internet1999-59032025-05-0117521710.3390/fi17050217A Web-Based Application for Smart City Data Analysis and VisualizationPanagiotis Karampakakis0Despoina Ioakeimidou1Periklis Chatzimisios2Konstantinos A. Tsintotas3Department of Information and Electronic Engineering, International Hellenic University, 574 00 Thessaloniki, GreeceDepartment of Production and Management Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, 671 32 Xanthi, GreeceDepartment of Information and Electronic Engineering, International Hellenic University, 574 00 Thessaloniki, GreeceDepartment of Information and Electronic Engineering, International Hellenic University, 574 00 Thessaloniki, GreeceSmart cities are urban areas that use contemporary technology to improve citizens’ overall quality of life. These modern digital civil hubs aim to manage environmental conditions, traffic flow, and infrastructure through interconnected and data-driven decision-making systems. Today, many applications employ intelligent sensors for real-time data acquisition, leveraging visualization to derive actionable insights. However, despite the proliferation of such platforms, challenges like high data volume, noise, and incompleteness continue to hinder practical visual analysis. As missing data is a frequent issue in visualizing those urban sensing systems, our approach prioritizes their correction as a fundamental step. We deploy a hybrid imputation strategy combining SARIMAX, <i>k</i>-nearest neighbors, and random forest regression to address this. Building on this foundation, we propose an interactive web-based pipeline that processes, analyzes, and presents the sensor data provided by Basel’s “<i>Smarte Strasse</i>”. Our platform receives and projects environmental measurements, i.e., NO<sub>2</sub>, O<sub>3</sub>, PM<sub>2.5</sub>, and traffic noise, as well as mobility indicators such as vehicle speed and type, parking occupancy, and electric vehicle charging behavior. By resolving gaps in the data, we provide a solid foundation for high-fidelity and quality visual analytics. Built on the Flask web framework, the platform incorporates performance optimizations through Flask-Caching. Concerning the user’s dashboard, it supports interactive exploration via dynamic charts and spatial maps. This way, we demonstrate how future internet technologies permit the accessibility of complex urban sensor data for research, planning, and public engagement. Lastly, our open-source web-based application keeps reproducible, privacy-aware urban analytics.https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/17/5/217smart citiesinternet of thingsweb-based applicationdata visualization
spellingShingle Panagiotis Karampakakis
Despoina Ioakeimidou
Periklis Chatzimisios
Konstantinos A. Tsintotas
A Web-Based Application for Smart City Data Analysis and Visualization
Future Internet
smart cities
internet of things
web-based application
data visualization
title A Web-Based Application for Smart City Data Analysis and Visualization
title_full A Web-Based Application for Smart City Data Analysis and Visualization
title_fullStr A Web-Based Application for Smart City Data Analysis and Visualization
title_full_unstemmed A Web-Based Application for Smart City Data Analysis and Visualization
title_short A Web-Based Application for Smart City Data Analysis and Visualization
title_sort web based application for smart city data analysis and visualization
topic smart cities
internet of things
web-based application
data visualization
url https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/17/5/217
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