Created By: Eng. Ahmed Nabil

March 2015

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Contents1 URBAN PLANNING ASSESSMENT.........................................................................................................3

1.1 City Assessment...........................................................................................................................3

1.2 Identifying a Baseline...................................................................................................................3

1.3 Benchmarking – Process & Considerations..................................................................................3

1.4 Indices Sources, Metrics & ISO....................................................................................................3

2 INTEGRATED ACTION PLAN (IAP).........................................................................................................4

2.1 Strategic long-term vision Vs. Short-term objectives...................................................................5

2.2 IAP Preparation – Process & Issues..............................................................................................6

3 Information Technology & Smart Cities...............................................................................................6

4 Conclusion.........................................................................................................................................11

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1 U RBAN P LANNING A SSESSMENT

1.1City Assessment- Before a city can become smarter and initiate changes, it needs to understand exactly where

it stands in relation to other cities so that it can establish a starting point.- The first step is understanding the city’s current position and how it will pinpoint the important

factors to take into account when preparing a strategy and how to integrate an Integrated Action Plan IAP and the inherent process within it.

- Then we need to find a requirement to measure, monitor and assess impacts and peer comparison with other cities to reach to this need.

1.2 Identifying a BaselineCreate “A benchmarks for comparison” concept. This baseline to measure a city project is relative to other surveyed cities and that serves as a starting point to identify “Areas for improvement”.

1. Baseline Indicator – establishes where a city project is relative to other surveyed cities (which provide the “benchmarks for comparison) – but this is a starting point to identify areas for improvement. Various wide-ranging city indicators (e.g. smart city indices, quality of life…etc.) and vertical area indicators (e.g. water usage per day per person) are available to assist in identifying the baseline for a given vertical area or the city as a whole.

2. Target – Cities need to setup policies, programs and projects to move from Position 1 to Position 2. Thus, improving their performance in a given area (e.g. Energy consumption). This target is unique to the particular city. Comparing the target with other benchmarks allows understanding of how the project is improving the cities performance relative to its peers.

3. Aspirational – Where a city can aspire to go to by way of further focus and projects. This is a “stretch” target point to aim for in many ways and many cities will adopt these aspirational targets in order to “shoot for the moon”.

4. Benchmarks – The other city scores for whatever indicator is being measured are the benchmarks by which the “baseline” location is ascertained. In the example above this could be liters of water consumed by the city per person per day and shows the current city’s position relative to other cities.

1.3Benchmarking – Process & Considerations

1.4 Indices Sources, Metrics & ISO

- Indices Sources:There is a bewildering array of city indicators. It is imperative to understand why they are relevant and what the methodology is that lies behind them.

Sources for City Indices: EIU - Livable Cities:

http://www.eiu.com/site_info.asp?info_name=The_Global_Liveability_Report

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Global City Indicators Facilityhttp://www.cityindicators.org/

Urban Sustainability Indexhttp://www.urbanchinainitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/2010-USI-Report.pdf

European Smart Cities:http://www.smart-cities.eu/

Global Power City index:http://www.mori-mfoundation.or.jp/english/research/project/6/pdf/GPCI2011_English.pdf

- Metrics & ISO in Smart Cities: Metrics is another term that is often used interchangeably with indicators, although the meaning of metrics is more associated with quantitative assessment used for “measurement and comparison or to track performance”. In practice, metrics tends to be a more granular way to measure and compare.

The International Standards Organization (ISO) has initiated standardization activities in the field of smart cities. ISO standardizations on smart cities are the first initiative of this kind. ISO standardization objectives are to obtain certification rules, also applying to the smart cities on-going standardization activities. Certification rules are non-binding, meaning that countries, industry and involved stakeholders are free to adopt the recommendations and standards provided by the rules. However, as ISO standardization rules are going to be the first of a kind, these will pave the way for further standardization, either at European or national levels.

There are 2 projects; Project ISO 37101 Internal Design Specifications and Project ISO 37120 Sustainable Development and Resilience: Indicators for City Services and Quality of Life.

The above 2 projects should be taken into consideration while preparing the Integrated Action Plan for such project (Smart City).

2 INTEGRATED ACTION PLAN (IAP)

The IAP should be based upon a clear process, which takes into account multiple considerations in order to ensure most elements are covered. For example, a sound knowledge of the local situations in terms of environmental and socio-economical governance issues.

This section is intended to define the process for how an IAP for a smart city project should be prepared in a hypothetical manner and how establishing visions and goals for the IAP may be achieved.

Any IAP should also include successful identification of possible innovations, such as the “Key Innovations” identified by the Smart Cities Stakeholder Platform. This requires the right understanding of the market environment, the stakeholders involved and the capacity of the involved organizations.

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2.1Strategic long-term vision Vs. Short-term objectivesIn many cities long-term success is built upon on a variety of overlapping short-term achievements, which requires a delicate balance. City decision-makers need to have a dynamic, constantly refreshed strategic "vision" for what the city will look like in the long-term, and make sure that the various short-term projects and initiatives have a direct line of sight to the longer strategic vision.

Connection of the short-term objectives to the long-term goals involves a process of defining the long-term goals and planning backward to develop short-term objectives.

Thus, short-term successes become motivation to achieve long term goals, though convergence between the individual goals and timelines targeted by the different actors that participate in the building of the smart city may be a real challenge.

Short Term Strategy:An IAP by definition is designed for single projects (which may have multiple areas of impact of course), and has to contain a coherent plan covering the sectors of activities to be developed in executive planning.

The short -term strategy should be developed in conjunction with the long term strategy, in order to avoid smart actions taken only on a short term PR type driven perspective. This is particularly relevant also for monitoring and evaluation during implementation, as different indicators for measuring success in the short, medium, and longer term will have to be thought through at the outset.

Long Term Strategy:The IAP must contain a clear outline on the strategy actions that the local authority intends to take in order to reach its goals and visions.

Areas such as land use planning, transport and mobility, public procurement, standards for new /renovated buildings will most likely be part of the long term strategy but will involve short term projects to achieve the long term strategy.

Industries/utilities should be involved in outlining joint the long term strategy in cooperation with the city (Innovative Public Private Partnerships can be addressed in executive planning governance issue).

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2.2 IAP Preparation – Process & Issues

Figure 1 (Cisco IBSG, Smart City Framework)

The IAP process shown above in Figure 1 (adopted from the Cisco Smart City Framework) is intended to help a city to put together the IAP which will help them answer the following questions as part of the preparation of an IAP:

Why is a Smart City initiative good for a city?What is the value case that justifies the initiative or innovation?What should be done?Which solutions should be deployed?Which actions have to be taken?Which projects and components of the initiative are crucial?How should the solutions be implemented?Which policies and business models have to be in place to implement the plan?

3 Information Technology & Smart Cities

Information Technology is changing the evolution of cities. The notion of “growing” cities based on implementing correct urban planning is being replaced with the idea of making a city “Smart”.

The Internet is changing the traditional urban planning model and compelling planners to not only consider the physical planning of a city but also to consider the use of Information Technology to make the economy, environment, mobility and governance of a city more efficient and effective.

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A number of definitions for the term “smart city” exist. One of the more widely used definitions is outlined by Bakici, Almirall, & Wareham (2013) who define smart cities as “Cities that utilize information and Communication Technologies (ICT) with the aim to increase the life quality of their inhabitants while providing sustainable development. From this definition we can see that ICT plays a pivotal role in making a city more adapted to the contemporary needs of its citizens.

In addition, many definitions include some reference to the use of ICT for making modern cities more suited to the needs of citizens (Chourabi, et al., 2012), as he views cities to be smart when “investments in human and social capital and traditional (transportation) and modern (ICT-based) infrastructure fuel sustainable economic growth and a high quality of life.

In this section, I examine the essential building blocks that a city needs to put in place in order to make the best use of ICT for making a city smart. I argue that there are five essential ICT elements that are needed to ensure a solid ICT foundation exists for nurturing the “smart” agenda of a city:

Essential #1: Deployment of Broadband Networks

When considering the implementation of a smart ICT plan for a city, the first step for any policymaker is to foster the development of a rich environment of broadband networks that support digital applications, ensuring that these networks are available throughout the city and to all citizens. This plan for easy access to broadband should include a broadband infrastructure that combines cable, optical fiber, and wireless networks. This will offer maximum connectivity and bandwidth to citizens and organizations located in the city.

The latest broadband service is Fiber-optic, which is the fastest Internet connection available. However, in many places this type of Internet service is still in its infancy. Expanding this service across the city is an essential part of any smart city agenda.

With these fiber-optic cables connectivity increases in critical areas around the city such as universities, business centers, technical and research institutes, government offices and emergency response units. These fiber-optic networks are fundamental in acting as a backbone for ensuring high-speed access to the Internet. Additionally, they facilitate the installation of sensors1, which are key to the development of intelligent solutions for the city. They also ensure access to any electronic public services that the city plans to offer its constituents. The long term goal of setting up such an infrastructure is to facilitate, once broadband access is widespread enough, an open broadband network that the entire city population, i.e. organizations, companies, municipalities and individuals can use.

This widespread availability of fast Internet speeds has often been shown to lead to the development of innovative approaches to particular social challenges and to the establishment of new businesses and business models.

1 These networks are fundamental to ensuring high-speed access to the Internet and to any e-services that the city plans to offer its constituency.

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In addition to the wired broadband networks that are necessary for smart cities, wireless broadband is becoming ever more in demand, especially with the explosive popularity of mobile applications, smartphones, the increased connectivity of smart devices, the Internet of Things (IoT), as well as the drop in costs of sensors and radio frequency identification (RFID) technology.

Cities can use broadband wireless networks to enable a wide range of smart city applications that enhance safety and security, improve efficiency of municipal services and promote a better quality of life for residents and visitors. This mobile infrastructure has already become an essential element for smart cities.

Essential #2: Use of Smart Devices and Agents

The second step for smart city planners to consider when implementing a smart ICT plan for a city is to ensure that the physical space and infrastructures of the city are enriched with embedded systems2, smart devices, sensors, and actuators3, offering real-time data management, alerts, and information processing for the city administration.

The presence of these devices combined with wireless connectivity throughout a city facilitates a richer and more complex digital space within the city, which in turn can increase the collective embedded intelligence of a city. This collective embedded intelligence allows relevant stakeholders of the city to be informed about the city's physical environment and facilitates the deployment of advanced services like spatial intelligence4. It also paves the way for developing other innovative ecosystems that help to link the city with its people and visitors through technology.

Essential #3: Developing Smart Urban Spaces

Smart urban spaces are areas of a city that leverage ICT to deliver more efficient and sustainable services and infrastructures within that specific area.

This can be executed by connecting the embedded systems, sensors and smart devices located across the city together to form a cohesive and integrated ICT infrastructure for the city, is the third essential step along the way to smarter cities.

The spaces can sometimes be as large as entire city districts and these districts can include services like electric car charge points, energy-efficient buildings that use ‘smart’ meters and smart heating and cooling systems.

Wi-Fi hotspots and information kiosks that allow people to connect to the Internet on the move through these districts are also common services available in smart urban spaces. Free Wi-Fi hotspots are becoming more and more common in most smart cities. These smart urban spaces comprise a wide range of innovations that can be of enormous environmental and economic benefit to both the district and the city at large.

2 An embedded system is a computer system with a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electrical system, often with real-time computing constraints.

3 An actuator is a type of motor for moving or controlling a mechanism or system.

4 Spatial intelligence of cities refers to informational and cognitive processes, such as information collection and processing, real-time alerts, forecasting, learning, collective intelligence, and cooperative distributed problem solving, which characterize "intelligent" or "smart" cities.

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Similar to step two, this step allows for the creation of applications, which enable data collection and processing, web-based collaboration, and actualization of the collective intelligence of citizens.

The latest developments in Cloud Computing and the emerging the Internet of Things (IoT), open data, semantic web, and future media technologies have much to offer cities looking to become smart. These technologies can assure economies of scale in infrastructure, standardization of applications, and turn-key solutions for software as a service (SaaS), which dramatically decrease the development costs while accelerating the learning curve for effective functioning of smart cities.

Essential #4 Developing Web-based Applications and e-Services

The availability of ubiquitous ICT infrastructures like those discussed above stimulates the development of new services and applications by various types of users, and allows for the gathering of a more realistic assessment of users’ perspectives by conducting acceptability tests directly on the infrastructures already in place and functioning in the smart city.

To this end, Living Lab networks can help to make the testing of new applications and e-services easier and should be used as building blocks for the more efficient development of smart cities.

Smart cities commonly deploy online services across different sectors of the city, for instance a city airport will require different e-services to a city hospital. Smart city e-services include services for the local economy and its development, tourism, the city environment, its energy and transport services, security services, education and health services and so on.

Sensors can be used to manage the mobility needs of citizens with an appropriate Intelligent Transport System (ITS) that takes care of congestion, predicts the arrival of trains, buses or other public transportation options; managing parking space availability, expired meters, reserved lanes, and so on. ICT can be also used for environmental and energy monitoring such as using sensors to detect when waste disposal pick-ups are needed, or to measure energy consumption and emissions.

As previously touched upon other services may include building management services like smart meters and monitoring devices to help monitor and manage water consumption, heating, air-conditioning, lighting and physical security. ICT can also be used in improving the health of citizens through telemedicine, electronic records, and health information exchanges and in remote assistance and medical surveillance for disabled or elderly people. When providing public Safety and Security, sensor-activated video surveillance systems can be employed along with location aware enhanced security systems, and estimation and risk prevention systems (e.g. sensitivity to pollution, extreme summer heating). ICT services can change the way citizens work by providing remote working and e-commerce services for businesses, entertainment and communications for individuals. Integration of the e-services is a key-factor, enabling the above processes to work together and create environments more efficient in collaborative problem-solving and innovation. Innovative entrepreneurs and start-ups should be encouraged and supported to leverage these original technologies and adapt them to offer novel services to the citizens and businesses of the city.

Essential #5 Opening up Government Data

Open Government Data (OGD) initiatives, and in particular the development of OGD portals, have become widespread since the mid-2000s both at central and local government levels in Europe and indeed across the globe. Understanding the preconditions that enable the efficient and effective implementation of these initiatives is essential for growing cities and especially cities looking to become smart. This is true in terms of the role played by OGD in relation to Open Government policies in general. The effective use of government data can precipitate the smart evolution of a country’s cities, creating national competitive advantage for the country in question.

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Two civil society movements are campaigning for greater openness of information, documents and datasets held by public bodies. The first is the Right to Information movement, which promotes a public right of access to information from a human rights perspective. The second is the Open Government Data movement, which uses predominantly social and economic arguments to encourage the opening up of government data. The latter claims that putting such information into the public domain can benefit society by creating conditions for more social inclusive service delivery and for more participatory democracy. They also argue that it can stimulate the economy by allowing the possibility for third parties (e.g. individuals, private enterprises, civil society organizations) to create new products and services using public data.

There is significant overlap between both movements, in that both aim to increase the transparency of government so that all members of society can enjoy the inherent social and economic value of information that has been generated and collected with public funds. Public agencies are trying to increase the transparency of government processes and performance by publishing relevant data online and sharing it with the public. Government data, made available in machine-readable, linked datasets that can also be searched and manipulated using standard tools, is a critical new resource for fuelling changes in value creation (economic, social and political) of a city or region.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has identified 5 benefits to opening government data for a city, region or country:

1. Improving government accountability, transparency, responsiveness and democratic control2. Promoting citizens self-empowerment, social participation and engagement3. Building the next generation of empowered civil servants4. Fostering innovation, efficiency and effectiveness in government services5. Creating value for the wider economy

These five benefits place a great emphasis upon the need for a city’s governing body to engage with its citizens and listen to their needs when developing the city. In general, (public) governance has been defined “as regimes of laws, administrative rules, judicial rulings, and practices that constrain, prescribe, and enable government activity, where such activity is broadly defined as the production and delivery of publicly supported goods and services.

Thus, based on the five benefits outlined above, opening up government data to citizens encourages good governance. Good governance, in turn, encourages public trust and participation that enables services to improve. However, it is not only engagement between government and citizens that is essential to the success of a city becoming smart, all stakeholders need to engage and work together towards growing the city to meet their own needs.

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4 Conclusion

This white paper looks at what information and communication technologies (ICTs) are needed to develop and nurture a smart city. It lists five essential elements for any smart city ICT planning policy.

These five essentials are closely related and build upon each other to ultimately provide a comprehensive ICT solution. This solution takes the form of a ubiquitous digital platform, which is available across the city (via Wi-Fi hotspots, private networks or local information kiosks) to all members of the smart city or community. It facilitates collaboration at a local level in a streamlined digital fashion, reducing energy and time costs for all participants and increasing quality of life within the community.

Smart Cities Stakeholder Platform:

... Brings together people, industry and authorities from across Europe to make our cities more energy efficient, better to live in and growth-friendly.

... It is about developing concrete innovative solutions for cities through tailored innovations.

... It facilitates the exchange of knowledge and best solutions across smart cities in the region.

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