This Special Call targets selected papers from the IX Workshop de Computação Urbana (CoUrb 2025) and 7th International Workshop on Urban Computing (UrbCom 2025), but also accepts other submissions related to the theme.

The global population is increasing rapidly, and with this growth, cities are evolving to meet new challenges and previously non-existent characteristics. As technology advances, urban areas undergo significant transformations, becoming embedded with many technological devices and gaining new capabilities. However, there is still much progress in utilizing these advancements to enhance our urban experience.

Urban Computing is at the forefront of planning for cities' future and improving the quality of life for their residents. This field bridges information and communication technology with managing large data volumes and diverse data analysis methods, addressing the nature of urban and social phenomena. It is a multidisciplinary area that extends beyond computer science, presenting complex challenges that require advancements in both technical and formal aspects.

This special issue invites authors worldwide to submit papers that explore innovative solutions in urban computing, focusing on digital technologies that impact and transform people's lives in cities. We are looking for papers that have contributions in computer science or related to computer science, addressing, among other topics, intelligent transportation systems, data-driven urban management, sustainability, urban sensor networks, and machine learning/artificial intelligence applied to urban spaces. Contributions to this Special Call will not only offer a research overview and facilitate critical discussions but also play a pivotal role in setting the agenda for the next decade of research and practice in urban computing, helping to navigate and address the challenges ahead. 

This call is an opportunity to present and highlight the role of urban computing as a way to develop smarter and more humanized cities. In addition to receiving new submissions, the best papers from the IX Workshop de Computação Urbana (CoUrb 2025) and 7th International Workshop on Urban Computing (UrbCom 2025) will be invited to submit extended versions with at least 35% of new content.

 

Topics of Interest

At the same time, the urbanization of cities modernized people's lives. It brought significant challenges, such as public management of collective spaces, air pollution, congestion, energy consumption, and quality of life. In this context, Urban Computing emerges as a process of acquiring, integrating, and analyzing a large amount of heterogeneous data generated from different sources in urban spaces, such as portable devices, sensors, vehicles, and humans. Urban Computing is an interdisciplinary area that connects information and communication technology, advanced management of large volumes of data, and different methods of analyzing collected data to propose efficient solutions to problems faced by cities. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Data Analysis and Intelligent Systems

o Data Analysis and Mining for Urban Environments
o Federated Learning for Urban Computing
o Anomaly Detection and Event Discovery in Urban Areas
o Heterogeneous Data Management
o Recommender Systems
o Urban Planning Using Big Data
o Improving the Quality of Life in the City Using Mobile Services and Big Data
o Visualization of Urban Data

Infrastructure, Networks, and Protocols

o Architectures and Protocols for Urban Environments
o D2D and 5G Communication in Urban Environments
o Offloading Data
o Internet of Things for Urban Computing
o Urban Sensing Infrastructures
o Urban Applications and Governance

Urban Applications and Governance

o Smart Cities
o Urban Computing for Economic Development
o Urban Computing for Public Safety and Security
o eGovernance
o e-Health and m-Health
o Urban Computing for Transportation Systems
o Location-Based Services

Human Interaction and Behavior

o Social Computing
o Human Mobility
o Human-Computer Interaction in Urban Spaces
o Participatory/Opportunistic Sensing

Sustainability and Environment

o Green Computing in Urban Environments
o Protecting the Environment with Urban Computing

 

Selection process

We welcome submissions from worldwide authors of original, unpublished, and novel in-depth studies related to the topics of interest. The best articles from CoUrb 2025 and UrbCom 2025 will be invited to submit an extended version to this Special Call. The version submitted to this Special Call must have at least 35% new material concerning the article initially accepted and published in the conferences. Articles must be written in English. A cover letter in English must also be submitted, featuring the extensions made. The article submitted to JISA will undergo a new review process that may include the reviewers who reviewed the original article and other reviewers. 

 

Important dates

○ Submission deadline:  04 December 2025
○ Notification 1st round: 16 January 2026
○ Submission of revised versions deadline: 17 March 2026
○ Notification 2nd round: 31 April 2026
○ Submission of revised versions deadline: 01 June 2026
○ Notification 3rd round (final): 01 August 2026
○ Camera-ready submission deadline: 15 October 2026
○ Ultimate deadline for publication: 30 November 2026

 

Guest Editors

Daniel Guidoni, Federal University of Ouro Preto (UFOP), was program chair of the most important urban computing workshop in Brazil (CoUrb) and a member of the editorial board of the IEEE Latin America Transactions and Journal of Internet Services and Applications (guest editor).

Leandro Villas, University of Campinas (Unicamp), was the program chair of the most important urban computing workshop in Brazil (CoUrb) and organized special issues on related topics. He has also conducted research on techniques and approaches for supporting developers in the design of urban computing.

Thiago Henrique Silva, Federal University of Technology Parana, was program chair of Brazil's most important urban computing workshop (CoUrb) and the IEEE International Workshop on Urban Computing. He is a member of the editorial board of Springer Urban Computing—Book Series and has taught short courses in urban computing.