A conceptual model for intelligent urban governance: influencing energy behaviour in cognitive cities

The premise of a cognitive city is that by having the right information at the right time, citizens, service providers and city government alike will be able to make better decisions that result in increased quality of life for urban residents and the overall sustainability of the city. This chapter explores the influence of governance on sustainability and maps the impact of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on the decision-making process by increasing policy effectiveness, accountability, and transparency within urban systems. This chapter further presents conceptual systems models for the cognitive city and energy behaviour including three sub-layers as human-institutional, physical, and data layers. This chapter offers these integrated conceptual models to increase the efficiency of energy systems under complex and uncertainty conditions, facilitate energy consumption problem solving, and support the development of capacities at the individual, social, and technical levels to improve managing energy consumptions in the future. Using a systems methodology, the socio-technical systems models explore how practices of information sharing and different structures of governance and management impact the willingness of individuals and households to adopt sustainable energy practices.