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A large number of reports have been published over the last months, from known consulting firms, on the topic of digital / smart / intelligent cities. By examining case studies from around the world, these reports provide a good understanding of the current trends regarding strategies, technologies, tools, services and business models.
Below, the reports are presented in chronological order:
Is Your City Smart Enough? Digitally enabled cities and societies will enhance economic, social, and environmental sustainability in the urban century
Ovum, March 2011 (Free)
Population growth, urbanization, and global warming are fueling an increasing focus on the challenges facing the world’s cities. As the global population heads towards 7 billion we are discovering that more people want the benefits of urbanization than our economies, societies, and the environment can necessarily sustain. Accommodating the future billions will require cities that make smarter use of resources to deliver more with less.
Information technology is an important enabler of a more sustainable approach to designing, building, and operating cities. New greenfield cities and major urban renewal projects provide the focus and investment needed to reengineer the way cities work.
Digital Urban Renewal: Retro-fitting existing cities with smart solutions is the urban challenge of the 21st century
Ovum, April 2011 (Free)
New tools created by the ICT industry have the potential to help city governments address the growing range of challenges that they are facing. However, the tools themselves are not a “silver bullet” that will solve urban problems in one stroke. Deploying them will require a new discipline of digital urban renewal and a philosophy that incorporates both political leadership and open collaboration.
Smart Mobile Cities: Opportunities for Mobile Operators to Deliver Intelligent Cities
Accenture, Cisco and the GSMA, April 2011 (Free)
The twin challenges of rapid urbanization and climate change are contributing to the scarcity of resources in cities in both developed and developing markets. Cities around the world are suffering resources constraints in energy supply, road capacity, water reserves and even clean air for their citizens to breathe. New solutions are urgently required to cope with these resource challenges to ensure that the city of the future is a safe, healthy and desirable place for its citizens to live, work and play.
Building and Managing an Intelligent City
Accenture, March 2011 (Free)
How new strategies, technologies, open platforms and effective governance can help create cities that are sustainable and attractive to ongoing development
Smart City Leaders Need Better Governance Tools: Smart City Governance Brings New Opportunities For Tech Providers
Forrester Research, May 2011 (US $2495)
Interest in smart cities has taken off like wildfire. Cities of all sizes navigate the challenge ‘” growing demand for new constituent services within increasingly constrained budgets ‘” and try to identify potential solutions to their cities’ woes. The combination of critical urban pain points and vendor enthusiasm to address them has resulted in a proliferation of point solutions: emergency response integration, traffic congestion alleviation, waste and water management, smart buildings, smart grids, etc. The key to being a truly smart city, however, lies in bringing these systems together, creating an integrated approach to city governance as a whole. City leaders are embracing governance tools, and we expect that adoption will grow. The opportunity for tech vendors and service providers lies in facilitating smart governance ‘” offering cloud and shared services models for business applications, providing integration and cloud management services, and generally facilitating the coordination and collaboration among city departments and city leadership.
The Smart Solution for Cities
Arup, June 2011 (Free)
Smart systems have a strategic role to play in making cities more resource effective. Relatively low-cost technologies such as smartphones, wireless broadband and sensor networks can be used to share realtime information that lets city administrations and citizens make informed decisions about how they use resources.
The Top Seven Intelligent Communities of 2011
Intelligent Community Forum, June 2011 (Free)
To gain a place among the Top Seven, communities pass through an intensive analysis of their strategies, programs and results in five categories: broadband deployment, the ability to create and sustain a knowledge-based workforce, digital inclusion, innovation, marketing and advocacy. The Top Seven excel in all of these areas. But that does not make them the seven “smartest” communities on the planet, whatever that might mean. Rather, it makes them the seven most compelling models of best practice in economic and community development worldwide.
Smart Cities: Municipal Networking, Communications, Traffic/Transportation, and Energy
ABI Reseach, June 2011 (US $4500)
Many municipalities are exploring the Smart City concept. They may be installing municipal wireless networks; implementing e-government initiatives by providing access to city departments and initiatives through web sites; integrating public transportation with Intelligent Transportation Systems; or developing ways to cut their carbon footprints and reduce the amount of recyclables that are consigned to the trash heap.
This study clarifies the meaning of the term “Smart City” through an examination of more than 50 actual Smart City projects around the world. It also provides insights and data from a range of ABI Research studies that cover many of the technologies that can be used to make a municipality and its various agents more communicative and responsive to its citizenry, while allowing its transportation and other infrastructures to use energy more efficiently and cost-effectively.
Rise of the Intelligent City
Accenture, June 2011 (Free)
As the world becomes more and more urbanized, the successful city of the future will need to aggressively pursue two goals: managing resources from a sustainable perspective and creating an attractive economic and social environment in which citizens, companies and governments can live, work and interact.
Intelligent Communities: Platforms for Innovation
Intelligent Community Forum, July 2011 (Free)
Innovation will be the theme for 2012 Intelligent Community Awards. Innovation is one of ICF’ s five Indicators, but the special theme will focus on how Intelligent Communities create uniquely powerful innovation ecosystems on a foundation of information and communica-tions technology. Innovation in Intelligent Communities brings together business, government and institutions in a dynamic partnership that produces results ranging from better and cheaper service delivery to citizens to the birth and growth of entrepreneurial businesses and vital new institutions. Intelligent Communities are pioneers in the complex collaboration that powers innovation today and are experts at building an innovation culture that attracts talent, investment and global recognition. By becoming platforms for innovation, Intelligent Communities create a better life for citizens on all rungs of the economic ladder and a vibrant future for the next generation.