A Novel Deep Learning Approach for Real-Time Critical Assessment in Smart Urban Infrastructure Systems

The swift advancement of communication and information technologies has transformed urban infrastructures into smart cities. Traditional assessment methods face challenges in capturing the complex interdependencies and temporal dynamics inherent in these systems, risking urban resilience. This study aims to enhance the criticality assessment of geographic zones within smart cities by introducing a novel deep learning architecture. Utilizing Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) for spatial feature extraction and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks for temporal dependency modeling, the proposed framework processes inputs such as total electricity use, flooding levels, population, poverty rates, and energy consumption. The CNN component constructs hierarchical feature maps through successive convolution and pooling operations, while the LSTM captures sequence-based patterns. Fully connected layers integrate these features to generate final predictions. Implemented in Python using TensorFlow and Keras on an Intel Core i7 system with 32 GB RAM and an NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti GPU, the model demonstrated a superior performance. It achieved a mean absolute error of 0.042, root mean square error of 0.067, and an R-squared value of 0.935, outperforming existing methodologies in real-time adaptability and resource efficiency.