Photo: Smart-Cities-Council

First ‘neutral’ smart cities guide launched

18 November 2013

by Richard Forster

A guide for city leaders to measure and assess their current state of technology and readiness to become a smart city has been released by the Smart Cities Council.

Launched today at Barcelona’s business school, ESADE, on the eve of the Smart City Expo World Congress, the guide is billed as the first comprehensive, vendor-neutral smart city handbook for city leaders and planners. It was designed with input from leading smart city and urban planning experts, five pilot cities and global technology companies.

Jesse Berst, Chairman, Smart Cities Council
Jesse Berst, Chairman, Smart Cities Council

“To our knowledge there is nothing else like it,” Jesse Berst, Chairman, Smart Cities Council, told Cities Today after the launch. “There are guides printed from a single company’s viewpoints and general guides but nothing that really gives specific advice. Here’s 27 guidelines and if you follow these 27 guidelines you can build a city safely and create a foundation that will support you for years and years of progress.”

The 27 guidelines provide best practices and more than 50 case studies that aim to help a city create its own customised ‘wish list’ and help them avoid pitfalls.

“It’s just a shame if cities make the same mistakes that everyone else has made,” added Berst. “At least make some new mistakes. Don’t go making these same ones over again as here it is down in the guide: ‘Don’t do this’.”

The guide includes recommendations on all eight of a city’s most important responsibilities: the built environment, energy, telecommunications, transport, water and waste water, health and human services, public safety, and payments.

Bechtel, the company overseeing the construction of London’s £15 billion Crossrail project, is one of the lead partners on the council that participated in the development of the guide.

“The technology of the council sets itself apart from other city networks,” said James Denton Brown, Manager of Planning for Civil Infrastructure Global Business at Bechtel. “Bechtel is not a vendor but a technology company because of the type of projects that we do. Crossrail just bristles with technology, communication networks, and signalling. Bechtel feels like they have something to offer in that transition from these technological concepts into actually designing and building these things in cities.”

Work is already underway for a 1.1 Readiness Guide and organisers plan to release an updated 2.0 version in November 2014. Other lead partners include: IBM, Microsoft, Itron and Mastercard. A free download is available to all cities that register on the Smart Cities Council website.

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