List of smart cities
The following is a list of cities that have implemented smart city initiatives, organized by continent and then alphabetically.
The Institute for Management Development and Singapore University of Technology and Design rank cities in the Smart City Index according to technological, economic and human criteria.
In the Smart City Index 2023, the top 15 smart cities were, in order, Zürich, Oslo, Canberra, Copenhagen, Lausanne, London, Singapore, Helsinki, Geneva, Stockholm, Hamburg, Beijing, Abu Dhabi, Prague, and Amsterdam. Since the first publication of the index in 2019, Zürich and Oslo have always been in the first place and second place.
Africa
...Asia and the Middle East
Dubai, UAE
In 2013, the Smart Dubai project was initiated by Shaikh Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice president of UAE, which contained more than 100 initiatives to make Dubai a smart city by 2030. The project aimed to integrate private and public sectors, enabling citizens to access these sectors through their smartphones. Some initiatives include the Dubai Autonomous Transportation Strategy to create driverless transits, fully digitizing government, business and customer information and transactions, and providing citizens 5000 hotspots to access government applications by 2021.Two mobile applications, mPay and DubaiNow, facilitate various payment services for citizens ranging from utilities or traffic fines to educational, health, transport, and business services. In addition, the Smart Nol Card is a unified rechargeable card enabling citizens to pay for all transportation services such as metro, buses, water bus, and taxis. There is also the Dubai Municipality's Digital City initiative which assigns each building a unique QR code that citizens can scan containing information about the building, plot, and location.
The Smart City Index 2021, published by the Institute for Management Development and Singapore University of Technology and Design, ranked Dubai and Abu Dhabi as the smartest cities in the region of the Middle East and North Africa, and in positions 28 and 29 worldwide.
GIFT City, India
GIFT City is India's first operational greenfield smart city. It is being developed as an international financial hub. Work on core infrastructure has fully been completed. It is the first South Asian city which has a centralised district cooling centre and automated solid waste collection system. Many commercial buildings, a school, and the Gujarat Biotechnology University are complete. Work on several residential projects is ongoing. Two international stock exchanges, international banks and fin-tech firms are currently operating from this city. IBM opened its software lab in the city in September 2022. Work on GIFT Riverfront started in September 2022.Chennai, India
is the capital of Tamil Nadu which will be developed into a Smart City. The Chennai Smart City project has focused on accomplishing Smart Energy, Smart Water, Smart Environment, Smart Mobility and Smart Technology. The project successfully rejuvenated 210 water bodies which improved groundwater levels. The CSC project constructed a suspension glass floor bridge making a stunning tourist attraction. The projects plans to make the quality of life in the city better by these initiatives. Work on the CSC project began in 2015 and was expected to finish in June 2024. The CEO of the project is Raj Cherubal.Isfahan, Iran
has a smart city program, a unified human resources administration system, and transport system.Neom, Saudi Arabia
NEOM is the name of a future planned city to be built in Tabuk Province in northwestern Saudi Arabia. It is planned to incorporate smart city technologies and to function as a tourist destination. The site is north of the Red Sea, east of Egypt across the Gulf of Aqaba, and south of Jordan. It will cover a total area of 26,500 km2 and will extend 460 km along the coast of the Red Sea.New Songdo City, South Korea
Songdo International Business District is planned to be a smart city.Shanghai, China
's development of the IoT and internet connection speeds have allowed for third-party companies to revolutionize the productivity of the city. As mobile ride share giant, DiDi Chuxing, continuously adds more user protection features such as ride recording, and a new quick response safety center, Shanghai is furthering their smart city agenda. During the first China International Import Expo, Shanghai focused on smart mobility and implemented sensors to accept smartphone traffic cards in all metro stations and buses to increase efficiency in the city.Singapore
, a city-state, has embarked on transforming towards a "Smart Nation", and endeavours to harness the power of networks, data and info-comm technologies to improve living, create economic opportunities and build closer communities.Taipei, Taiwan
started the "smarttaipei" project in 2016, where the major concept of is to change the culture of city hall government to be able to adopt new ideas and new concepts called bottom-up mechanism. The Taipei City government established the "Taipei Smart City Project Management Office", also known as the "PMO", to implement and governance the development of smart city. Thereafter, building an innovation matchmaking platform to combine industry and government resources to develop smart solutions that satisfy public demands.PMO accept proposals from industry and help to negotiate with relative department of Taipei city to initiate new proof of concept project, with the help of a matchmaking platform which allows citizens access necessary innovative technologies. There are more than 150 PoC Project established, and only 34% project finished.
Australia
Brisbane
launched a project to install poles around the city that would keep track of important information such as air quality or environmental noise. The information they collect is used by the city council to improve operations around the city. They also serve as street lights, have outlets for charging, and Wi-Fi.In 2023, the Salisbury smart cities controversy arose after a proposal for smart city technology in the South Australian local government area of City of Salisbury was met with community backlash leading to a range of conspiracy theories.
Europe
Amsterdam, Netherlands
The Amsterdam smart city initiative, which began in 2009, currently includes 170+ projects collaboratively developed by local residents, government and businesses. These projects run on an interconnected platform through wireless devices to enhance the city's real-time decision making abilities.To promote efforts from local residents, the City runs the Amsterdam Smart City Challenge annually, accepting proposals for applications and developments that fit within the city's framework.
An example of a resident developed app is Mobypark, which allows owners of parking spaces to rent them out to people for a fee. The data generated from this app can then be used by the city to determine parking demand and traffic flows in Amsterdam. A number of homes have also been provided with smart energy meters, with incentives provided to those that actively reduce energy consumption.
Other initiatives include flexible street lighting which allows municipalities to control the brightness of street lights, and smart traffic management where traffic is monitored in real time by the city and information about current travel time on certain roads is broadcast to allow motorists to determine the best routes to take. The City of Amsterdam claims the purpose of the projects is to reduce traffic, save energy and improve public safety.
Barcelona, Spain
has established a number of projects that can be considered 'smart city' applications within its "CityOS" strategy. For example, sensor technology has been implemented in the irrigation system in Parc del Centre de Poblenou, where real time data is transmitted to gardening crews about the level of water required for the plants. Barcelona has also designed a new bus network based on data analysis of the most common traffic flows in Barcelona, utilising primarily vertical, horizontal and diagonal routes with a number of interchanges. Integration of multiple smart city technologies can be seen through the implementation of smart traffic lights as buses run on routes designed to optimise the number of green lights. In addition, where an emergency is reported in Barcelona, the approximate route of the emergency vehicle is entered into the traffic light system, setting all the lights to green as the vehicle approaches through a mix of GPS and traffic management software, allowing emergency services to reach the incident without delay. Much of this data is managed by the Sentilo Platform.Copenhagen, Denmark
In 2014, Copenhagen claimed the prestigious World Smart Cities Award for its "Connecting Copenhagen" smart city development strategy. Positioned in the Technical and Environmental Administration of Copenhagen, the smart city initiatives are coordinated by Copenhagen Solutions Lab, the city's administrative unit for smart city development. There are other notable actors in Greater Copenhagen that coordinate and initiate smart city initiatives including State of Green and Gate21, the latter of which has initiated the innovation hub smart city Cluster Denmark.In an article with The Economist, a current major smart city project is explained: "In Copenhagen, as in many cities around the world, air quality is high on the agenda when it comes to liveability, with 68 percent of citizens citing it as of high importance when it comes to what makes their city attractive. To monitor pollution levels, Copenhagen Solutions Lab is currently working with Google and has installed monitoring equipment in their streetview car in order to produce a heatmap of air quality around the city. The information will help cyclists and joggers plan routes with the best air quality. The project also gives a glimpse of the future, when this kind of information could be collected in real time by sensors all over the city and collated with traffic flow data."
In another article with The World Economic Forum, Marius Sylvestersen, Program Director at Copenhagen Solutions Lab, explains that public-private collaborations must be built on transparency, the willingness to share data and must be driven by the same set of values. This requires a particularly open mindset from the organisations that wish to get involved. To facilitate open collaboration and knowledge-sharing, Copenhagen Solutions Lab launched the Copenhagen Street Lab in 2016. Here, organisations such as TDC, Citelum and Cisco work in collaboration with Copenhagen Solutions Lab to identify new solutions to city and citizen problems.