AMSTERDAM

Amsterdam has created a wealth of smart city projects all of which have data at the core.

The Amsterdam Smart City initiative encompasses projects in smart mobility, infrastructure, data analysis, and living labs.

The city, for example, supports an “Innovation Arena” to share smart city ideas, an urban development workflow scheme for city planners, a project which shares renewable energy resources between households, and an incident message exchange platform for emergency services.

Amsterdam makes all city information open-source through a portal called City Data. City officials say that offering this resource further promotes innovation in the area. Amsterdam first had to inventory over 12,000 datasets across 32 city departments before launching such a varied series of smart city projects. Whilst a boring job, this foundation has led to the city becoming a model for other cities worldwide that are interested in IoT and smart city technologies.

For any smart city initiative, immediate changes cannot be expected. Instead, a solid foundation of data has to provide the building blocks for transformation over time.

As shown in the cases of Amsterdam, Barcelona, and Singapore, transformation does not happen overnight; rather, small and incremental improvements to the lives of residents made possible through mobility and IoT can make all the difference -- and will help urban planners manage the rising numbers of people living in our cities.

Alanus von Radecki,
Head of the Competence Team Urban Governance Innovation, Fraunhofer IAO

“Cities are facing myriad challenges -- and as cities are essentially social and political entities, social issues are always high on the agenda for the people and authorities that manage them. So it’s about establishing the right conditions for a prosperous economy, one that creates and protects jobs and promotes social equality in an era of digital transformation. What’s more, cities must provide functioning infrastructure at affordable prices.”