Cities are wasting the potential of smart
technologies by failing to realize the value of their hidden infrastructure and
digital assets.
A report published by The Climate Group, Accenture,
Arup, and Horizon Digital Economy Research at The University of Nottingham says
opening up data and digital assets is critical to accelerating low carbon
cities.
The report, Information Marketplaces: The New Economics of Cities,
states that while cities are using information and communications technology
(ICT) to improve their sustainability and efficiency, they are not recognizing
or measuring the full value of smart initiatives and are missing the
opportunity to turn unused data and infrastructure into new low carbon
solutions and services. The report argues that the application of smart technology
is being hindered because:
- technology-led experiments often fail to
achieve useful outcomes for consumers and residents - slow and complex municipal procurement
processes make it difficult for small technology companies to participate and
limit access to new solutions - cities are unsure of the social and
financial payback from the investments they are being asked to make.
Catherine Mulligan, Transitional Fellow,
Horizon Digital Economy Research, says: “Through using the data from their
digital infrastructure as a market creation asset, cities will be able to
capture significantly more value from smart city ICT investments. In addition,
developing new information marketplaces will help cities create new industries
and achieve sustainable economic growth.”
Mark Kenber, CEO, The Climate Group, says: “Our cities sit on vast untapped resources of data and infrastructure that
could be integrated to accelerate the clean revolution while improving the
convenience and quality of urban life. To unlock that potential, cities need
the right leadership to create a vision of social, environmental and economic
goals that can be achieved by a more integrated application of smart
technology.”
The report highlights two key steps to
maximize the smart technologies in cities:
Articulate the benefits
Cities must capture the potential benefits of smart technology initiatives with
a common set of metrics that can be translated into financial and non-financial
values of relevance to different stakeholders.
These will allow cities to:
- compare the relative benefits of projects
and prioritise between them; a smart grid and a road pricing initiative for
example - achieve economies of scale by identifying
how a communications backbone, in this instance, could be used for both
applications.
Simon Giles, global senior principal,
Intelligent Cities, Accenture, says: “We need to reframe the intelligent city
value proposition by measuring and articulating the full social, environmental,
and economic rate of return generated by city-wide initiatives. Only then can
the private sector make the business case for participating. Only then can
cities make the capital decisions that bring greatest value to citizens.”
Freely available data
Research performed by Horizon illustrates that cities must provide open and
free access to their data and digital assets in the form of Application
Programming Interfaces (APIs). Making bus passenger data available, for
example, could result in a range of real time commuter information services.
Opening APIs will reduce the cost to third party developers of creating new
information-based services and applications. It will also maximize competitive
innovation by creating a level playing field for innovators.
“An intelligent city not only reduces
carbon emissions, but attracts talent and investment through quality services
and infrastructure and through convenience that delights residents,” says
Volker Buscher, Partner, Arup. “Cities must open up their digital assets and
create a thriving information marketplace for innovations that achieve these
aims. It will take courage for city leaders to challenge the cultural norms of
their administrations and expose themselves to this form of dynamic
collaboration.”
The report makes several recommendations to
policy makers and companies.
Local and national governments:
- Encourage the use of common,
international metrics to assess performance and to facilitate investment
decisions - Set national goals for cities to open
access to data sets - Start a debate on open data and on the
role cities should play in creating growth opportunities.
Companies:
- Understand the investment decision making
process of cities to ensure private sector technology development aligns with
public sector legal and procurement processes and timescales - Encourage pre-procurement task forces,
whereby companies can offer their technical expertise to help cities streamline
procurement processes - Use multi-partner trials to develop
capabilities for longer term scaling of technology solutions.
