Towards A Technological Reference Model of Bahraini Smart City

Reference architectural models are coherent representations/blueprints of the interaction existing between homogeneous/heterogeneous groups of systems, technologies, and users in complex business domains. Due to its complexity, the smart city domain should embrace a reference architectural model which facilitates coherent capabilities of the interacting application, and infrastructure's capabilities in a certain geographical area from one side and their relevant business users from the other side. Limited reference architectural models were proposed for smart city purposes. However, they lacked coherency, practicality, or quality. This paper discusses the empirical findings of smart cities derived from the literature review articles, investigates Bahrain's readiness for smartness, and proposes the development of a Bahraini Smart City-Technological Reference Architectural Model (BSC-TRAM), based on the insights of federal enterprise architecture framework. The BSC-TRAM was developed based on data collected from 10 public, semi-public, and private organizations, through literature review, interviews, and website content analysis. Findings revealed the availability of 17 Business functions which serve 17 public ministries, 16 directorates, 35 bodies, and 18 private economic units. Also, results revealed 26 application functions and 130 applications categories, and 7 infrastructure functions and 18 infrastructures categories