BARCELONA

In 2011, the emergence of a new city government changed the direction of Barcelona, which was suffering from high traffic congestion, pollution, and energy management issues.

Several IoT pilots were implemented, but it was not until 2013 when city officials decided to drive a full smart city project forward in order to make Barcelona “a self-sufficient city of productive neighborhoods at human speed, inside a hyper-connected zero emissions metropolitan area.”

Barcelona implemented 22 IoT projects in rapid succession to further this goal. The projects included investment in communications infrastructure & Wi-Fi, remote irrigation and smart energy systems, intelligent parking, sensor-based smart street lighting, and the promotion of zero-emissions transport.

By 2015, €85 million was added in terms of GDP, alongside 21,600 jobs -- close to 2,000 of which were directly related to the smart city program.

In the future, the city plans to implement large city-wide projects including energy efficiency plans for buildings, new water management platforms, and further promote and support the use of electric cars and bikes.

McKinsey, smart city applications research

“We found that these tools could reduce fatalities by 8–10 percent, accelerate emergency response times by 20–35 percent, shave the average commute by 15–20 percent, lower the disease burden by 8–15 percent, and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 10–15 percent, among other positive outcomes.”