In order to achieve an efficient energy consumption level in the residential sector of a smart grid, the end-users are equipped with various smart home energy controller technologies. The devices are provided to inform the consumers about their consumption pattern by showing or sending different kinds of consumptional information to them. This kind of information is provided to assist them in making decisions about altering their consumption behaviour or to urge them to modify their life style during peak hours. We propose that the energy home controllers should offer preferred and optimal scenarios to support end-users when making a decision about their consumption. Effective scenarios should emerge from consumer's life style and preferences. In this paper, we will apply AHP methodology to quantify the consumer's preferences for using appliances during peak periods when the price has increased, and use the Knapsack problem approach to achieve the optimal solution for managing the appliances. With this approach, not only will the cost of electricity not escalate during peak hours, but also user preferences, satisfaction and minimum change to current life style will be considered.

It is expected that demand response programs will be designed to decrease electricity consumption or shift it from on-peak to off-peak periods depending on consumers' preferences and lifestyles. This paper demonstrates a fuzzy TOPSIS decision-making approach to quantify and evaluate consumers' preferences at the micro-level when using electrical devices according to a real-time price scheme of demand response in order to best manage the use of appliances. This enables and supports householders to maximize their participation in demand response programs.

Traffic control is one of the most challenging issues in metropolitan cities with growing populations and increased travel demands. Poor traffic control can result in traffic congestion and air pollution that can lead to health issues such as respiratory problems, asthma, allergies, anxiety, and stress. The traffic congestion can also result in travel delays and potential obstruction of emergency services. One of the most well-known traffic control methods is to restrict and control the access of private vehicles in predetermined regions of the city. The aim is to control the traffic load in order to maximize the citizen satisfaction given limited resources. The selection of restricted traffic regions remains a challenge because a large restricted area can reduce traffic load but with reduced citizen satisfaction as their mobility will be limited. On the other hand, a small restricted area may improve citizen satisfaction but with a reduced impact on traffic congestion or air pollution. The optimization of the restricted zone is a dynamic multi-regression problem that may require an intelligent trade-off. This paper proposes Optimal Restricted Driving Zone (ORDZ) using the Genetic Algorithm to select appropriate restricted traffic zones that can optimally control the traffic congestion and air pollution that will result in improved citizen satisfaction. ORDZ uses an augmented genetic algorithm and determinant theory to randomly generate different foursquare zones. This fitness function considers a trade-off between traffic load and citizen satisfaction. Our simulation studies show that ORDZ outperforms the current well-known methods in terms of a combined metric that considers the least traffic load and the most enhanced citizen satisfaction with over 30.6% improvements to some of the comparable methods.