

6.2.2 Potential Action 2: Big Data for planning and management 

Context 

Data-driven planning and management strategies will contribute to planning and management 
strategies at the city level which are agile enough to respond to the various opportunities and needs 
of stakeholders arising in the city. The flow of data and information arising from a broad variety of 
ICT-driven technologies offers ample opportunities for optimising, assessing and communicating on 
the progress with implementing smart city policies. Examples can be found with regard to capturing 
(big) data on mobility and electric transport, energy systems, smart metering, environmental sensing 
and control and data and information from peer-to-peer applications and social media. As yet, the 
most imminent aspects related to implementing this action concern opening up of databases which 
are currently in use at public services and city departments. This action will clearly contribute to the 
visibility of the benefits of smart city-policies. Making data available for development of new services 
can induce possible innovations in planning and management concepts. Besides, it is an important 
action as it makes benefits of policies implemented across departments more visible. 

Goal 

The goal is to support the implementation of data driven planning and management approaches in 
developing and implementing smart city projects. This in itself will contribute to visibility of smart 
city initiatives to the public and to a playing field across cities making it easier for companies to 
demonstrate benefits of their smart city solutions and technology. 

Deliverable 

Providing support for data-driven urban planning and management policies: 

i. Assessment of best-practices from cities implementing data-driven policies for planning and 
management; 
ii. Harmonized standards for sharing urban data and information. 


Preconditions 

Preconditions for success include: 

. City authorities are important in delivering commitment to open data-policy and supporting 
data-driven approaches to planning and management of smart city initiatives; 
. Public services to collaborate on opening-up their data stores and considering data-policy as 
part of the implementation of smart city initiatives; 
. Private sector can contribute and adhere to common standards for data-collection and 
exchange; 
. An important precondition relates to data-ownership and privacy-aspects any of which have 
to be resolved at national and EU-level, e.g. in the Framework of policies like INSPIRE. 


Methods and details of implementation 

A possible implementation could include: 

. Phase 1: Survey and collection of existing best practices on data driven planning and 
management policies at city level and benefits in developing and implementing smart city 
initiatives. 
. Phase 2: Focussed actions to assess impediments (judicial, operational) of using city-wide 
data in planning and management and propose solutions 
. Phase 3: Delivering concepts and business cases on how to maximize the use of city-wide 
(big) data and information in a collaborative planning and management approach 
. Phase 4: Testing and demonstration in a variety of cities on small-scale projects 
. Phase 5: Roll-out 



Monitoring 

To monitor progress, attention can be paid to the following set of indicators: 

. Number of cities implementing policies and projects to open up their data-stores. 
. Number of smart-city-initiatives having a feed-back of operational data and information into 
the planning and management process 
. Share of new bottom-up information services capturing progress and benefits of 
urban ”smartness” 


 

 


6.2.3 Potential Action 3: Urban Simulation and Planning 

Context 

Cities can benefit greatly from quantified assessments and scenario exercises. These tools can help 
to better understand the impacts of policies and implementation strategies under different context 
conditions. This can cover a broad array of topics such as land use and urbanization, investments, 
energy saving and production, mobility plans, resource efficiency and variable socio-economic 
aspects. Pending issues relate to questions as to whether and how urban policies will contribute to 
an energy efficient and sustainable city, how to inform stakeholders on complex system 
interdependencies or how to arrive at smart decision-making? Urban simulation and planning 
models to capture the dynamics and impacts of urban development, including socio-economic 
aspects, will be a helpful tool in this context. Focussing on the use of energy-models and energy-
mapping from district to city-wide scale, addressing all relevant sectors, can deliver early benefits. 

Goal 

The goal is to offer a common approach and methodology which can be used among cities to assess 
in a quantified way the effects of planning policies and implementation strategies on energy, 
mobility, socio-economic aspects and urban development. 

Deliverable 

i. Common models and approaches across cities for energy-models and energy-mapping from 
district to city-wide scale, addressing all relevant sectors 
ii. Early case studies of the use of digital platforms for integrated multidisciplinary collaborative 
design and planning (co-simulation and optimization of complex interactions in different 
domains, virtual environments for viewing and commenting designs, e-learning applications, 
user-oriented cognitive data visualisations). 


Preconditions 

Preconditions for various entities include: 

. City authorities are important in delivering commitment to innovative model-based planning 
initiatives through granting experiments for defining en developing proto-type tools and 
instruments 
. Public services to collaborate on opening-up their data stores and considering model-based 
planning as part of the implementation of smart city initiatives 
. Private sector can contribute to adhere to common standards for model-based planning and 
protocols for data-exchange from operational systems 
. Academia/RTO’s are important in developing proto-types for model-based planning, 
definition of common standards, guidelines to ensure compatibility. 


Methods and details of implementation 

A possible implementation could include: 

. Phase 1: Define demand, supply and benefits of model-based planning and the options for 
simulation tools across frontrunner cities and academia/RTO’s. 
. Phase 2: Prepare pilot phases in a defined number of cities to define and experiment with 
various approaches of model-based planning; include exchange of experiences and user 
feedback. 
. Phase 3: Delivering concepts and business cases on urban simulation and planning models to 
capture the dynamics and impacts of urban development in a collaborative planning and 
management approach 
. Phase 4: Roll-out - Enable the demonstration and promotion of leading Smart City-examples 
in the use of simulation models in integrated planning and management 



Monitoring 

To monitor progress, attention can be paid to the adherence of cities in model-based planning 
approaches in their smart city initiatives and action plans. These approaches should contribute to 
the agility with which cities and stakeholders can develop, test and implements plans and show the 
benefits in relation to long term city policies. 

 


6.2.4 Potential Action 4: City communication and engagement 

Context 

This action relates to ICT enabling city governments in communicating and engaging broad 
stakeholder groups in their planning and management policies regarding city development. It 
therefore focusses on smart visualisation tools supporting communication on city governance issues, 
peer-to-peer-tools and social media to engage large, informal groups into city development and 
governance. 

Goal 

The goal of this action is to support cities in communicating and engaging broad stakeholders 
groups, most importantly citizens, in their integrated planning and management policies. It is one of 
the enabling tools to collect opinions, address stakeholder interests and to secure long-term support 
and involvement. 

Deliverable 

i. Demonstration of innovative peer-to-peer and citizen-to-government-platforms for 
exchange of ideas and opinions regarding city planning and management issues. 
ii. Common models and platforms to include integrated planning and management of cities as 
part of e-governance strategies. 


Preconditions 

Preconditions for various entities include: 

. City authorities are important in delivering commitment to innovative services and tools 
(apps) which enable visualisation and interactive communication on city plans and bottom-
up initiatives. This can be done e.g. through organised hackatons and competitions and 
through promotion of innovative services for stakeholder engagement. 
. Private sector actors are also are important in delivering commitment to innovative services 
and tools (apps) which enable visualisation and interactive communication when it relates to 
their involvement in city services. They can further contribute by adhering to common 
standards and protocols for data-exchange from operational systems. 
. Academia/RTO’s are important in developing tools for visualisation and data-capture which 
are necessary to build user services. 


Methods and details of implementation 

A possible implementation could include: 

. Phase 1: Survey and collection of existing best practices and tools on communicating and 
engaging broad stakeholder groups in city planning and management policies 
. Phase 2: Prepare experiments and hackathons in across a defined number of cities to 
support development of ICT-enabled services for citizen involvement in city planning policies 


Monitoring 

. Number of cities to start including integrated planning and management into their (e-
)policies; 
. Evidence of services informing stakeholders (citizens, private sector actors) on 
implementation of city policies, progress of projects and city performance related to key 
parameters and policies; 
. Evidence of services supporting peer-to-peer-initiatives and their success in bringing 
bottom-up processes effectively in the city governance and planning process. 



7 Priority Area 'Knowledge Sharing' 

7.1 Introduction 

Knowledge sharing between cities, and across sectors, is vital for smart city innovations. The SIP calls 
for swifter, more broadly applied, structured knowledge sharing, building on current good practices. 

7.2 Potential Actions 

Consistent with the five main recommended actions within the SIP, the following list of ideas provide 
additional thoughts on how knowledge sharing across all sectors can be improved and better 
exploited to accelerate action, increase confidence in those actions, and add value generally. 

 

# 

Title 

Summary 

Link to SIP Action 

1 

Cross-Sector 
Exchanges 
(see potential) 

Implement short-term secondment between Cities-NGOs-
Industry; crowd-source best ideas from alumni; review and 
repeat process. 

#2 enable 100 city-
NGO-Industry transfers 

2 

Technical 
support for 
capacity 
building 

Provide means to ensure cities of all scales have adequate 
opportunity to build capacity to implement smart solutions 
at all levels of city administration 

#1 Increase knowledge 
transfer 

#3 Knowledge Brokers 

 

3 

Knowledge 
Brokers 

Appoint “knowledge brokers” in city administrations to 
facilitate transfer of knowledge between sectors and 
governance levels. Network these to improve the 
circulation of information about smart city solutions. 

#3 Knowledge Brokers. 
#1 Increase knowledge 
transfer. 

Apply to domains (eg 
Planning; Data…) 

4 

Readiness 
Check-Lists 

Develop “check-lists” for cities to evaluate their readiness 
for Smart City roll-out and identify potential need for 
change. 

#4 integrate knowledge 
sharing from outset 

5 

Bilateral 
Mayoral 
Exchange 

Bilateral city mayors’ meetings. This can be exchanges over 
half a day between two cities in a specific area, e.g. energy 
efficiency. Exchange of good practice at political level can 
lead to swifter change. 

#1 Increase knowledge 
transfer. 

Planning 

Policy and Regulation 

6 

Study visits; 
Peer reviews; 
Mentoring 

Increase exchange of experience between cities through 
study visits, peer reviews and mentoring schemes allowing 
cities to transfer knowledge and benefit from the expertise 
of others (building on established knowledge transfer 
platforms; also to disseminate results from the lighthouse 
projects, focusing on reliability and transferability). 

#1 Increase knowledge 
transfer. 

7 

One-Stop 
Smart City 
Solutions Tool 

Develop web tool at EU and national levels to enable city 
staff, developers and business to access and exchange ideas 
on new solutions. 

#5 One-Stop web tool 

8 

City Advisory 
Board 

Establish City Advisory Boards including cities, industry 
(with R&D and market knowledge) and research 
community, to fit priorities along entire project chain to 
research needs. 

Stimulate critical discussion of outcomes of the EIP SCC 
among the research community. For instance, the EERA JP 
Smart Cities is a platform for such discussion and 
dissemination. 

#1 Increase knowledge 
transfer. 

Integrated Planning 




7.2.1 Potential Action 1: Cross sector staff exchanges 

The connections, contacts and communication between the main sectors involved in and concerned 
with smart city developments require strengthening. City administrations, companies (large to 
SMEs), relevant NGOs and academia need to better exchange and communicate. Much greater 
mutual understanding of needs and challenges is required to ensure they are anticipated and 
matched by available and forthcoming solutions. Study visits, peer reviews and mentoring 
programmes happen on a regular basis between cities across a wide range of areas with good results 
in terms of inspiring new developments and change. To scale up smart city development, a concrete 
and practical cross-sector approach to knowledge sharing is required. 

Goals 

Goals could include: 

. Create a better understanding across sectors of current and future needs as well as available 
solutions, with a view to facilitate learning processes and mutual understanding; 
. Build informal partnerships across sectors to scale up smart city development; 
. Ensure that knowledge about what works and what doesn’t is shared between cities and 
across sectors. 


Deliverables 

One concrete deliverable concerns short-term staff exchanges annually between cities, industry and 
relevant NGOs. Involvement of academia in the development of the exchange programmes and to 
capitalise on outcomes would be an asset. This action can start in 2014. 

Preconditions 

Preconditions for success include: 

- European networks (cities, business (incl. SMEs) and academia): to publicise the 
opportunities available with the programme and ensure engage of their members. 
Disseminate outcomes of the programme widely. 
- City administrations: to engage in developing a visiting programme, to host and send 
participants, to evaluate outcomes for own smart city developments. 
- Business/industry: as above. 
- NGOs: as above (where relevant) 
- Academia: To support cities and business in the process and ensure that the programme 
capitalize on benefits. Facilitate contact with programme alumni to ensure best practice is 
extracted. 


Methods and details of implementation 

- Advertise the possibility for participating in cross sector staff exchanges widely across the EU 
through e.g. networks. Clarify cost implications and benefits to potential participants. 
- Develop a short guide for staff exchanges which explains the elements to consider making 
the staff exchanges valuable and a win-win programme for all parties. 
- Gather expression of interest from cities, industry and NGOs and match them up according 
to their areas interest within smart city developments. To keep costs down, consider to 
match partners also according to geographical proximity. 
- Ensure that expectations to the exchanges are clarified with all parties before kick-off. 
- Crowd source the best ideas from the program’s alumni and make them publicly available. 


Monitoring 

Quantitative: 


- Number of staff exchanges taking place annually 
- Number of organisations, public and private, participating 
- Number of best practices identified 


Qualitative: 

- Feedback from participants in exchange programs 
- New or adapted/changed smart city developments in city administrations or industry 
following participation in the program 



7.2.2 Potential Action 2: Technical support (in kind) for knowledge sharing/capacity building in city 
administrations and business 

Context 

At local level, knowledge sharing is about getting the right work processes in place to ensure that 
information is transferred between different administrative departments of a city administration. 
Members of staff must be equipped to recognize relevant smart city solutions and work processes 
must facilitate knowledge sharing internally. City employees must also be qualified to communicate 
smart city developments and solutions to the citizens, local business and other stakeholders to 
ensure that information trickles down administrative systems and to other sectors. 

In some places this will require an up-skilling of employees and a review of work processes. 
Technical support for capacity building, communication and knowledge sharing in city 
administrations can help ensure adequate capacity to promote smart city developments and 
eventually boost the uptake of solutions locally. Technical support delivered through local 
partnerships can be a win-win situation for all partners involved increasing engagement and 
ownership. 

Goal 

The key goal is to ensure adequate capacity to promote and deliver smart city developments within 
city administrations and local business. 

Furthermore, such action should help ensure a local level playing field of knowledge of political, 
legislative, regulatory and administrative framework conditions for smart city developments. 

Deliverables 

i. Local smart city partnerships which stimulates knowledge sharing and capacity building 
between partners. 
ii. Smart skills staff training programmes in city administrations. Research organisations and 
academia can use their up-to-date knowledge to prepare comprehensive and practical 
guidelines, training documents and best practice examples. 
iii. Outreach programmes to local start-ups and SMEs with information about public support for 
smart city business development. 


Preconditions 

- The city administration must be on board to analyse its needs around work processes, up-
skilling and other staff developments for better deployment of smart city solutions; 
- Cities must streamline administrative processes and devote sufficient administrative 
capacities to support these processes; 
- Local business and research institutions should be partners in delivering the technical 
support to up-skilling city administration employees; 
- Industry partners that develop and supply new products materials and solutions should be 
partners in delivering the technical support to up-skilling city employees; 
- Research institutions, city administrations and industry can join forces to ensure that local 
start-ups SMEs get the right level of information about business support available. 


Methods and details of implementation 

- Gather good and bad practices about existing local smart city partnerships. 



- Establishment local multi sector smart city partnerships, where they are not already in place. 
They can be led by the city, business or research institutions but should be with a view to 
ensure and integrated approach to smart city developments. 
- The smart city partnerships work with their local city administration to assess the city’s 
needs and potentials, including within the city administration. 
- The city administration develops a smart skills training programme for members of staff to 
enhance its work processes and increase the capacity of the administration around 
development, implementation and communication of smart city solutions. 
- The training programme is delivered in cooperation with the members of the smart city 
partnerships. 
- The city administration and the relevant research institutions develops an outreach 
programme to local SMEs to ensure they are informed about local smart city development 
needs and public support available for start-ups and SMEs. 
- The smart city partnership develops a communication strategy to ensure knowledge about 
smart city solutions relevant for the local development is shared with all local stakeholders. 


Monitoring 

- Number of new smart city partnerships; 
- Number of new smart skills training programme in city administrations; 
- Number of city employees that have been through the training programme and their 
feedback- Number of local outreach programmes to start-ups and SMEs. Increases in uptake 
of smart city solutions locally . 


 


8 Priority Area 'Baselines, Performance Indicators and 
Metrics' 

8.1 Introduction 

There are more than 150 credible city indicator systems in place4, covering all manners of 
geographical, thematic as well as other criteria. Not surprisingly, they all tell a different story about a 
city's performance. Most cities do seek to compare their performance over time on some form of 
consistent basis; a comparison between cities, on the other hand, is a much harder task for each has 
a different context. If we are to confidently advance towards our agreed 20/20/20 targets some 
form of common measurement framework should be in place. Although it may be complex, and 
although cities do indeed differ contextually, we should rise to this challenge. 

4 http://www.jll.com/Research/jll-city-indices-november-2013.pdf 

Initiatives like the Global City Indicators Facility (GCIF), or the European Reference Framework for 
Sustainable Cities provide a sound basis of institutionally supported measurements. Yet there is 
presently no single, broadly-accepted indicator framework that reflects the ‘smart city’ approach – 
one that addresses cities systemically and can help cities understand better the inter-dependent 
nature of city systems and services; one that can help us demonstrate in an unambiguous manner 
how cities best use modern ICTs to improve quality of life, foster sustainability and boost 
competitiveness and innovation; and one that can help cities collect an improved set of data to 
underpin such measurements. 

All this requires indicator systems, data bases and statistical standards that should be developed in 
close collaboration between European cities, the academic community, industrial partners, 
standardisation institutes and statistical offices. 

 

8.2 Potential actions 

The table below outlines a number of actions that would support the development and European-
wide application of such an indicator system: 

# 

Title 

Summary 

Link to SIP Action 

1 

EU smart city 
Indicator 
framework 

(See example 
action below) 

Develop and pilot an EU-wide smart city Indicator 
framework as a collaborative exercise; adopting/adapting 
existing measurement assets; and establish a means to 
achieve wide-scale adoption. 

#1/2/3 develop/deploy 
indicator system 

2 

Constituency 
building 

(See example 
action below) 

Activities related to the development of indicators, 
consensus-building, dissemination of results, getting the 
buy-in, e.g. organise a European scientific conference on 
smart city indicator systems and monitoring tools. 

#1/2/3 indicator system 

Knowledge sharing 

3 

Metrics 
Standards 

Develop and align standards for European energy, mobility 
and ICT data to enable comparison at local levels (within 
cities over time; and between cities) 

Standards 

Open / big data 

4 

Smart City 
Competitions & 

With focus on improvements of a city with respect to a 
baseline, implement competitions and awards to instil a 

#3 ongoing monitoring 

Knowledge sharing 




Awards 

greater emphasis on performance within cities (e.g. 
between city districts, involving citizens directly), and 
between cities – all based on a respected measurement 
framework. 

Open / big data 

5 

Smart City KPI 
Uptake 

Establish a business model that ensures the uptake and 
sustenance of the smart city indicator framework; 
particularly for cities with limited resources/capacities 

#3 ongoing monitoring 

Implementation 



 

 


8.2.1 Potential Action 1: Develop and provide data for an EU-wide Smart Cities indicator framework 

Context 

The European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Smart Cities and Communities seeks to support cities 
in becoming more energy-efficient, in using more renewable energy and reducing their greenhouse 
gas emissions by stimulating technological innovation, engaging citizens and providing innovative 
concepts, processes, methods and tools. To create transparency and build confidence, all such 
actions need to be quantifiable against clear baselines such that wins can be clearly evidenced – to a 
city's leadership and its citizens. To this end, a comprehensive indicator system, based as far as 
possible on real data, is needed. 

In recent years, several indicator systems and assessment methodologies related to specific aspects 
of smart cities have been developed on the European level. Relevant initiatives and projects are, for 
example, the Covenant of Mayors, the Green Digital Charter, CIVITAS, CONCERTO, Urban Audit, 
ESPON, the Reference Framework for Sustainable Cities (RFSC) as well as others. However, there is 
still no integrated indicator system that supports reliable progress-monitoring in all fields relevant to 
smart cities, both within a city over time, and in between cities. 

Goals 

To develop an agreed indicator framework that enables cities to self-evaluate their progress over 
time towards “smartness” and compare themselves to other cities in a more reliable manner. To 
adopt or adapt existing measurement assets in order to make data collection and use less onerous. 
To achieve broad acceptance and sustained use of the framework, encouraging use by all kinds of 
cities and their industry and partners from academia. 

Deliverables 

i. Smart City Indicator Framework & Toolkit: aligned with actions established through 
HORIZON 2020. This should addresses the systemic nature of cities and integrate ICT/‘smart’ 
elements within the framework; 
ii. Agreed Top-Level ’Smart Indicators’: that can be used consistently and with confidence to 
demonstrate progress towards the 20/20/20 energy and climate targets; 
iii. Data Protocol: there will be data gaps (because the framework will be based on data from 
other projects and databases with only few cities represented in all of these) - cities should 
therefore be invited to commit themselves to update and complete their datasets and help 
themselves and others closing data gaps; 
iv. Dissemination method and means of sustainability: the more cities that apply the indicator 
system (and share their experiences and data with other cities), the more profound the 
insights into barriers and success factors for smart city development will become. 


Preconditions 

- Collaboration between European cities, the academic community, industrial partners, 
standardisation institutes and statistical offices; 
- Cities provide the data in a standardized format, and data is opened up; 
- Protocols are established to manage sensitive data; 
- A regular cycle of data updates is established. 


Methods and details of implementation 

Implementation of two key elements are covered: (i) the Indicator Framework, and (ii) the Data 
Protocol 


The following six-step approach is proposed for the Indicator Framework: 

. Step 1: Scoping of indicators: mapping of areas where indicators are needed and their 
nature (e.g. environmental). Identify in detail the action areas where we want indicators 
with a preliminary list of such indicators; 
. Step 2: gap analysis of existing indicators from experience and research. This phase should 
look as well to what barriers may exist in the KPI area; 
. Step 3: develop the missing indicators: through standardisation bodies or others; 
. Step 4: agreement on the indicators: a European scientific conference could be the means to 
get there; 
. Step 5: define the baseline and pilot KPIs: Through voluntary actions to see practical 
feasibility of indicators set for cities. This phase could also shed light on data availability, 
knowledge-levels of the user, practical meaningfulness of the data indicators in the urban 
context; 
. Step 6: Create the ecosystem required to enable the use of KPIs through methodologies for 
data collection, data usage, assessment, training to city staff, creating the necessary 
availability of data, removing barriers identified during the gap analysis. 


The following four-step approach is proposed for the Data Protocol: 

- Step 1: Analysis of Status Quo 
o What measurement systems are typically used by cities? And what ‘smart’ 
measurement approaches are in use? 
o Which data has already been collected by the city? 
o Which data is missing to fulfil the requirements of the indicator system? 
o In which format should the missing data be collected? 


- Step 2: Data collection and data standardisation and integration 
- Step 3: Transfer of missing data to European Framework 
- Step 4-n: Regular (e.g. annual) data update 


Monitoring 

- Use by European cities (number of) – of different types 
- Qualitative feedback of use at strategic and operational levels 
- Adherence to regular data updates 
- Quality of data (standard format, metadata) 
- Data gaps and restrictions in data availability should be documented and analysed. 


 

