July 7, 2014 -- An OGC Urban Planning Domain Working Group (SWG) is being chartered to define the role for OGC standards and related activities within the Urban Planning Discipline and to provide an open forum for the discussion and presentation of interoperability requirements, use cases, pilots, and implementations of OGC standards in this domain. Initiators of the new DWG seek comments from the public on the draft new charter. The comment period closes on  6 August 2014.

A “Smart City” invests in human and social capital, physical infrastructure and information communications technology (ICT) infrastructure to sustain quality of life in the urban environment. Technologies and trends such as Augmented Reality (AR), Smart Cities, Smart Grids, Sensor Webs, the Internet of Things (IoT), LBS (Location Based Services), Facilities Management, navigation (indoor and outdoor) and “Big Data” Analytics all can play important roles in informing urban planners. Also, these technologies are permanent and rapidly evolving elements of life in modern cities, which makes them subjects for urban studies and urban planning.

In all of those technology domains, open standards can facilitate the development, publication, discovery, assessment, analysis, portrayal and use of information.The OGC Urban Planning Domain Working Group intends to discover requirements for open geospatial standards in information systems involved in the planning, design, use, maintenance and governance of publicly accessible spaces. Requirements presented and discussed in OGC Domain Working Groups are typically addressed in existing or yet-to-be chartered OGC Standards Working Groups and in the OGC's collaborative activities with other standards development organizations.

The OGC® is an international consortium of more than 475 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC standards support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org/.