Secure data exchange in smart cities: lessons from Arrowhead fPVN

Abstract

Smart cities depend on the interaction of many heterogeneous systems, including IoT devices, mobility platforms, energy networks, environmental sensors, public services and administrative data systems. These systems are often developed by different providers, operated by different organisations and based on different data formats, interfaces and security requirements. As a result, cyber-resilience is not only a matter of protecting individual systems from attacks, but also of governing how information is exchanged, accessed and interpreted across complex digital environments. This paper explores how concepts from the Arrowhead fPVN project, which focuses on interoperability in production value networks, can provide useful lessons for secure data exchange in smart cities. The paper builds on published project directions related to microservice-based architecture, major industrial data models, semantic analysis and translation mechanisms between different data representations. The approach is conceptual and comparative: it maps selected Arrowhead fPVN principles to typical smart city challenges such as fragmented platforms, incompatible information models, cross-domain coordination and the need for controlled interaction between independent systems. The paper discusses how microservices, controlled service interaction and semantic translation can help reduce integration problems between heterogeneous systems and support safer information exchange, more transparent coordination and improved cyber management. The expected contribution is not to present Arrowhead fPVN as a complete cybersecurity solution for smart cities, but to show how its interoperability-oriented principles can inform the design of more structured, auditable and semantically clear digital public infrastructures. The results are relevant for researchers, practitioners and public administrations interested in cyber-resilient urban services, gradual integration of legacy systems and improved governance of data exchange.