ROAD TO SMART CITY
Developing a strategy model on selecting the right Smart technologies
A Smart city is like a Panopticum,
“
a prison where you don’t know if
you are being watched, but you can
assume you are.
”
– A. Balkan, VPRO Tegenlicht – Slimme steden, 1st of May 2016
ROAD TO SMART CITY
Developing a strategy model on selecting the right Smart technologies
Name student:
Joris de Keijzer
Student number:
11076178
University:
University of Amsterdam
Master program:
Information Studies: Business Information
Systems
Final version:
31
thof July 2016
Supervisor:
Drs. Toon Abcouwer
Second examiner:
Drs. Arjan Vreeken
Practical supervisor:
Óskar J. Sandholt
I
ABSTRACT
Smart cities is a popular, but fuzzy term, where a lot of cities are struggling with. One of those cities is Reykjavik who is transforming into a smarter city. A Smart city is seen as a city where investments are made in human and social capital and IT infrastructure to embrace sustainable economic growth, based on participatory governance. Big IT-vendors provide many Smart technological solutions, however cities are struggling with finding the right solution for their particular city, as every city has their own characteristics and challenges. In order to help cities make the right decisions, a conceptual Smart city strategy model is derived based on an extensive literature review on the Smart city definition, Smart city strategies and Smart city challenges and innovation. That model is evaluated by eighteen interviews with employees of the municipality of Reykjavik and other relevant external stakeholders in the city of Reykjavik, and one interview with an external Smart city expert.
The model (figure 6.1) consists of four phases that together aid a city to identify what they want to achieve with Smart city initiatives and how they can achieve that in order to become a smarter city. The four phases are (i) Identification, where a Smart city team needs to be assigned, and the stakeholders, vision, and issues of the city need to be identified; (ii) Classification, where a city will assess their own infrastructure and available data about the city in order to see what can be re-used in another way, and perform a horizon scan on the relevant available Smart technological solutions that need to be implemented to achieve the identified vision and goals; (iii) Prioritization, where the relevant Smart technological solutions need to be prioritized, based on eight criteria; and (iv) Roadmapping, as the development of an action plan on how the Smart technological solutions, which consist of instruments, interconnections of data and intelligent applications, need to be implemented.
According to the interviews, the model is found as a useful guideline for cities towards understanding what Smart cities actually are and how they need to approach the Smart city initiative, as it is still seen as a complex concept. By implementing the model on identifying what a city wants to achieve, how they will achieve it and who needs to be involved, a holistic view is provided, which aid to implement Smart city initiatives.
A first step to implement the model is made in Reykjavik as the vision, issues and relevant stakeholders are identified during interviews with many different decision-makers in Reykjavik. Future research is necessary to evaluate the model when applied in a larger scale to find if the approach can help cities choose the right Smart technological solutions and provide a clear Smart strategy plan.
II
PREFACE
This master thesis is the end result of the master Information Studies: Business Information Systems at the University of Amsterdam. The research is conducted in cooperation with the municipality of Reykjavik. During an earlier course of the master program a project was done in cooperation of Óskar J. Sandholt, who is the director of Operation and Services at the municipality of Reykjavik. Together with Óskar J. Sandholt and Toon Abcouwer, my supervisor of the University of Amsterdam, the topic for this research was discussed to provide an interesting topic for my master thesis.
I therefore would like to thank Óskar J. Sandholt by providing the possibility to conduct my research in Reykjavik and therefore go abroad during my master program. A good working environment was provided and Óskar J. Sandholt friendly welcomed me to Iceland and introduced me to many different stakeholders who were relevant for this research. He was also always available for any feedback to provide on this document in order to improve the end result. Next to Óskar I would also like to thank Toon Abcouwer of the University of Amsterdam as he mainly provided feedback on the research project and helped me in completing my master program. In addition I would like to thank all the participants of the interviews that I conducted for this research. In particular I would like to thank Bas Boorsma of Cisco who helped me with scoping the research design beforehand and provided his critical view on the result in order to review the results and discuss what the main conclusion should be. Without their help it would not have been possible to achieve this result and complete my master program.
Joris de Keijzer
III
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.!
INTRODUCTION+ 1!
1.1!
Problem+statement+ 1!
1.2!
Research+question+ 1!
1.3!
Document+structure+ 2!
2.!
LITERATURE+REVIEW+ 2!
2.1!
Smart+cities+ 2!
2.1.1! Characteristics!for!Smart!cities! 3! 2.1.2! Challenges!of!Smart!cities! 4! 2.1.3! Challenges!for!the!public!sector! 5! 2.2!
Smart+cities+strategies+ 5!
2.2.1! Known!strategies! 5! 2.2.2! Technology!roadmapping! 8! 2.2.3! Smart!city!IT!investments! 9! 2.3!
DecisionFmaking+processes+ 9!
2.3.1! Selection!of!technologies! 10! 2.3.2! Information!system!investment!criteria! 10! 2.3.3! Risks!of!gathering!personal!data! 11! 2.4!
Innovation+in+Smart+Cities+ 11!
2.4.1! Crowdsourcing! 12! 2.4.2! Living!labs! 12! 3.!
CONCEPTUAL+SMART+CITY+FRAMEWORK+ 13!
4.!
RESEARCH+METHOD+ 14!
4.1!
Case+study+Reykjavik+ 15!
4.1.1! The!city!Reykjavik! 15! 4.2!
Interview+structure+ 15!
4.3!
Participants+interviews+ 16!
4.4!
Analysis+of+the+interviews+ 16!
5.!
RESULTS+ 16!
5.1!
Analysis+of+the+interviews+ 16!
5.2!
Main+findings+of+the+interview+ 17!
5.2.1! Open!view!on!Smart!cities! 17! 5.2.2! The!city!Reykjavik! 17! 5.2.3! Smart!city!strategy! 21! 5.2.4! Evaluation!of!conceptual!model! 25! 5.3!
Summary+of+main+findings+ 25!
6.!
DISCUSSION+ 26!
6.1!
Changes+conceptual+model+ 26!
6.1.1! Identification! 26! 6.1.2! Classification! 27! 6.1.3! Prioritization! 27! 6.1.4! Roadmapping! 28! 6.2!
Limitations+ 29!
6.2.1! Research!method! 29! 6.2.2! Participants!interviews! 29!IV 6.2.3! Implementation!of!model! 29! 7.
!
CONCLUSION+ 29!
7.1!
Smart+city+strategy+model+ 29!
7.2!
Recommendation+ 30!
7.3!
For+further+research+ 30!
REFERENCES+ 31!
APPENDIX+A:+INTERVIEW+SCHEMA+ 34!
APPENDIX+B:+LIST+OF+INTERVIEW+PARTICIPANTS+ 36!
APPENDIX+C:+CATEGORISED+CODE+SCHEMES+ 37!
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.1 - SMART model of Smart city planning. 6! Figure 2.3 - The Smart city Reference model. 8! Figure 2.4 - Cities investment in ICT infrastructure from bottom-up. 9! Figure 2.5 - IT/IS investment criteria. 11! Figure 3.1 - Conceptual Smart technological selection model. 13! Figure 5.1 - Example of coding scheme after clustering the codes. 17! Figure 6.1 - Smart city technological selection model. 26!
LIST OF TABLES
Table 5.1 - Main visions of the city of Reykjavik. 18! Table 5.2 - Main issues of Reykjavik. 18! Table 5.3 - Opportunities recognized for Reykjavik. 20!
Table 5.4 - Possible Smart solutions seen as relevant for Reykjavik. 20!
Table 5.5 - Advantages of Reykjavik on becoming a Smart city. 21!
Table 5.6 - Barriers recognized for Reykjavik. 21! Table 5.7 - Main steps to be taken by a city. 23!
Table 5.8 - Main stakeholders Smart city Reykjavik. 23!
Table 5.9 - Selection criteria for Smart technological solutions. 24!
1
1. INTRODUCTION
Many cities are facing the challenge of becoming a Smart city. Smart cities is a popular term nowadays, which cities are struggling with, as there is not yet one clear known definition. Smart cities are labeled as a fuzzy term (Letaifa, 2015) (Negre, et al., 2015) (Nam & Pardo, 2011) (Caragliu, et al., 2009). Many authors have already studied the definition of Smart cities and provided a list of definitions according to the literature, namely (Letaifa, 2015) (Negre, et al., 2015) (Nam & Pardo, 2011) (Chourabi, et al., 2012). However, all those studies conclude that cities are qualified as Smart cities when investments are made in human and social capital and in IT infrastructure to embrace sustainable economic growth, based on participatory governance (Negre, et al., 2015) (Nam & Pardo, 2011) (Caragliu, et al., 2009).
Smart cities can be seen as a high-end concept, which makes Smart technologies more attractive to cities investments. As the world population is growing everyday there will be a demand pressure on urban areas, which brings new issues and challenges. Smart city initiatives are mostly implemented as it can improve the sustainability and livability of the city (Chourabi, et al., 2012). Cities also need to adapt to changes simply in order to keep alive as a city (Negre, et al., 2015) (Belissent, 2010). Doing nothing within the rapidly changing environment is seen as a high risk by local governments (Cannon & Nielsen, 2015). Cities who do not think about Smart city initiatives will simply fall behind. With these initiatives, many economic outcomes could be achieved such as attracting new businesses, creating new jobs, and improving the productivity (Chourabi, et al., 2012).
1.1 Problem statement
However, becoming a Smart city is not an easy process that every city can simply jump into. There is not yet a general approach known on how cities should implement Smart technological solutions, to make their city ‘smarter’. Cities that want to become ‘smarter’ are struggling with selecting the right Smart technological innovations. Every city has their own issues and concerns and there is a huge offer of Smart technological innovations available, which are mostly technologically pushed instead of demand pulled coming from problems that cities are facing today (Angelidou, 2015). Technological organizations or research institutes try to develop new solutions that could be useful and test those solutions in a practical environment of a city. However, a solution proven to be successful can have other results when implemented again in another environment. Scientific literature also does not describe how cities could select a technology that could serve as a solution for their particular issues or concerns. Mattoni et al. (2015) mention that there exists a wide gap between known scientific theories and the practical context of a Smart City. Therefore it is interesting to evaluate how known theoretical strategies perform in a practical scenario. This research aims to find which criteria are necessary to take into account, to know what influences the decision-making on selecting the right Smart technological innovations for a particular city. In order to bridge the gap between theory and practice, a case study is conducted in the city of Reykjavik, who is starting its journey on becoming a Smart city.
1.2 Research question
A research question is stated to scope the research and describe what the aim of the research is. The research question for this research follows from an exploratory study to Smart technological solutions for the case of Reykjavik (Othon, et al., 2016) and the problem statement as described in the introduction. The aim of the research is to analyze which criteria or factors could influence the choices of the Smart technological innovations the city should invest in, with regard to their particular situation or problems in their city.
2
Therefore the following research question is introduced:
‘Which factors and criteria are relevant to take into account while designing an approach that cities can use to select Smart technological innovations to improve the ‘smartness’ of the city?’
To find an answer on the above stated research question the following sub-questions are described:
- What is already known in scientific literature on strategic approaches to transform a city into a smarter city?
- What does a city that is considering on becoming a Smart city know about Smart cities? - How does a city think they should approach the Smart city strategy?
- Can a theoretical model be seen as a useful approach to help cities become a Smart city?
1.3 Document structure
As described the goal of the research is to develop guidelines for a city in order to become a smarter city. To be able to provide such guidelines an extensive literature review is conducted. The literature review can be found in the next chapter and includes a more extensive Smart city definition, the characteristics, success factors, IT perspective and challenges of a Smart city, a description of different theoretical known Smart city strategies, Decision-making processes and innovation in Smart cities. The literature review is summarized in a conceptual framework in chapter 3. After the literature review, the research methods are discussed, which includes the description of the case study of Reykjavik. The results of that case study are summarized in chapter 5. This thesis ends with a discussion about similarities and differences between the theory and interview results and concludes with an answer on the research question and recommendations for future research.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Smart cities
As described in the introduction, a Smart city can be defined as cities that invest in human and social capital and IT infrastructure to embrace sustainable economic growth, based on participatory governance (Negre, et al., 2015) (Nam & Pardo, 2011) (Caragliu, et al., 2009). Next to this definition, different authors mention many other definitions. The Smart city is also seen as a technical solution for political and environmental issues (Gabrys, 2014). Gartner defines Smart cities as “An urbanized area where multiple sectors cooperate to
achieve sustainable outcomes through the analysis of contextual real-time information, which is shared among sector-specific information and operational technology systems” – B.
Tratz-Ryan and N. Nakano, p.3 (2015), which is more of a technical perspective. A. M. Townsend suggests that “The internet is more about machines and our building environment talking to
each other instead of people talking to each other” - Anthony M. Townsend (2016), which
also indicates a more technological view on Smart technologies, also defined as the Internet of Things (IoT) or Future Internet technologies (Schaffers, et al., 2012).
Smart cities are often compared to digital cities or intelligent cities, which however cannot be defined as the same. Smart cities distinguish themselves by involving a user-centered approach on becoming Smart, while a Digital or Intelligent city is mostly technology-centered (Schuurman, et al., 2012). Oliveira and Campolargo (2015) discuss about Human Smart cities instead of Smart cities, as the new approach should even be more user-centric instead of technology-driven, which mostly it still is with Smart cities. Smart technologies need to be used as an enabler to connect and engage government and citizens (Oliveira & Campolargo,
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2015). Smart cities are based on the principle of information and data that is exchanged in the different sectors of the city (Velosa & Mok, 2013) and can therefore also be seen as system of systems, as many independent systems, for example, water management systems or transportation systems, need to be interconnected and work together to add value to that city. Connecting all the different systems together can be indicated as a key success factor for Smart cities (Buck & While, 2015). Only when sector-specific information is shared across many or all sectors a city can improve its Smart performance (Tratz-Ryan & Nakano, 2015). According to Schaffers et al. (2012), the Smart city concept is not yet reality, but a development strategy of how citizens are shaping the city in a continuous process of development and change, which is mostly technology pushed. Smart cities consist of a city environment, user-driven innovation environments, such as Living Labs, and Smart technologies.
2.1.1 Characteristics for Smart cities
Nam & Pardo (2011) describe that Smart cities include technological, institutional and human factors. Technological includes integration of systems, infrastructures and services through enabling technologies. IT is a facilitator that can be used to create an innovative environment. With institutional is meant the city government and relevant stakeholders. Nam & Pardo suggest “Leadership of key leaders and their strong support of the smart city vision are
fundamental to the success of smart cities” - Nam & Pardo, p.7 (288) (2011). Nam & Pardo
also suggest that a socio-technical view is necessary on Smart Cities, which means that cities should include people into the process to form the smart city instead of trusting on Smart technological solutions. The social (or human) and technical factors need to be strongly connected and understood to lead a smart city initiative (Nam & Pardo, 2011).
Griffinger et al. (2007) studied 70 European medium-sized cities according to six dimensions, namely (i) Smart Economy (competitiveness and innovation), (ii) Smart People (social and human capital), (iii) Smart Governance (Participation of stakeholders), (iv) Smart Mobility (Accessibility and ICT infrastructure), (v) Smart Environment (Natural resources), and (vi) Smart Living (quality of life). Letaifa (2015) mentions the same six characteristics in order to evaluate if a city is really Smart or not. A city should focus on all six of those characteristics in order to be defined as a Smart city. However, men can argue if a city should really include all the different dimensions to be seen as a Smart city as can be assumed that some dimensions are more relevant than others, according to the urban problems and challenges a certain city is facing (Griffinger, et al., 2007).
2.1.1.1 Success factors of Smart cities
According to Chourabi et al. (2012) a Smart city should consist of Management and organization, Technology, Governance, Policy context, People and communities, Economy, Built infrastructure, and Natural environment. Chourabi et al. compare the development of Smart cities with e-government initiatives. Therefore also management and organization and policy context are added to the others that where also already addressed by other authors. Management and organization is seen as an important success factor or major challenge when it comes to IT projects. Policy context involves legal regulations that perhaps need to change by implementing Smart city initiatives. It is important to understand the policy context to use Information Systems in an appropriate way. The other six success factors include the technology that is used, the economy that is seen as a major driver of Smart cites, people of the city, governance or stakeholders who are involved, the IT infrastructure that is used, and the natural environment (Chourabi, et al., 2012), which all can be compared to the characteristics of Griffinger et al.
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2.1.1.2 IT perspective on Smart cities
Harrison et al. (2010) suggest that a Smart city consist of (i) Instrumentation, instruments used to capture and integrate real-world data using sensors, cameras, social networks, etc., (ii) Interconnection, meaning the communication of the gathered information to city services, and (iii) Intelligence, complex analytics and visualization of information in order to use for making operational decisions (Harrison, et al., 2010). This approach is a more technical-centric view on Smart cities, as other articles suggests a more socio-technical approach is necessary to ensure a successful Smart city transformation.
Based on the theory of Harrison et al., Dirks & Keeling (2009) describe that cities should not invest in one particular technology but aim to transform the systems in a whole. Dirks & Keeling define a Smart city as “one that uses technology to transform its core systems and
optimize the return from largely finite resources.” - Dirks & Keeling, p.9 (2009). A Smart
city is seen as a system of systems (Buck & While, 2015) (Dirks & Keeling, 2009) (Dodgson & Gann, 2011). It is important that all systems are combined together in order to achieve sustainable growth long-term. Simply solving one particular problem or challenge with a Smart city solution will eventually not provide the desired result. Dirks & Keeling suggest that the transformation need to be seen as a journey and cities should develop an integrated city-planning framework, aligned with their internal expertise. Therefore three steps are described which should help cities in becoming smarter, namely (i) Assemble a team, a city does not have to solve all issues alone, (ii) Think revolution, not evolution, the next generation of the city need to emerge and smart systems need to be instrumented, interconnected, and intelligent, and (iii) Target all, not just one, as described earlier, a city should not only invest in one particular technology, but aim to provide a holistic system that can address multiple issues and is strongly interconnected (Dirks & Keeling, 2009).
2.1.1.3 Internet of things
The Internet of Things is a subject that is often discussed while talking about Smart cities. Gartner defines the Internet of Things (IoT) as “the network of physical objects that contain
embedded technology to communicate and sense or interact with their internal state or the external environment” - A. Velosa and L. Mok p.10 (2013). IoT solutions combine physical
things with IT hardware and software, which makes it possible to access and control the physical functions from everywhere instead of only the exact location with the use of IT-based digital services (Wortmann & Fluchter, 2015). Porter and Heppelmann (2014) suggest that connected products consist of three layers, namely (i) The device layer, (ii) The connectivity layer and (iii) The IoT Cloud layer (Porter & Heppelmann, 2014). Those three layers can be compared to the three characteristics of Harrison et al., namely Instrumentation, Interconnection and Intelligent. These layers suggest that simple investing in Smart sensors and instruments that gather information will not provide a Smart solution. The sensors need to be properly connected with each other via the Internet and be accessible by intelligent services that provide valuable information to people.
2.1.2 Challenges of Smart cities
According to Buck & While (2015) there is a high difference between Smart technology supply and demand. Suppliers of Smart technological innovations often focus on wealthier places, as their aim is to make profit. Therefore wealthier cities are chosen as innovation hubs and other cities are left behind. It is not possible for the private innovators to co-produce certain technologies as every city need place-specific solutions, which reduces profit for those innovators (Buck & While, 2015). A second challenge is that Smart city initiatives require leadership and co-operation of stakeholders who all are committed to change, which is difficult to achieve. It often takes much time to develop a holistic plan for the development of the Smart city, where every private and public stakeholder agrees on and there is no ‘Silver bullet’ on Smart city revenue (Tratz-Ryan & Nakano, 2015). Also according to Buck & While
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the public sector does not have sufficient knowledge, expertise, skills and resources when it comes to Smart cities or technological projects to negotiate with private organizations that offer Smart city solutions (Buck & While, 2015). “The delegation of public tasks to the
private sector is partially misunderstood as a discharge of public duties” - Buck and While,
p.6 (2015). Aral Balkan (2016) suggests that municipalities does not have the required technological knowledge to actually manage the data gathered by Smart solutions, as municipalities assume they anonymize personal gathered data correctly, but are not aware that companies like Google can easily deanonymize that data if they want to.
Galdon-Clavell (2013) described that Smart technologies are mostly technological pushed and available literature may have overlooked the government or societal pull. However, Galdon-Clavell described that in the recent years technological solutions are often taken for granted without questioning the value. Therefore high costs are made, as the promises of the value it should add are not critically evaluated (Galdon-Clavell, 2013). According to Gartner, many Smart city projects are highly impacted by technological capabilities and therefore lack to align with citizen needs and cannot improve the quality of life of the citizens (Tratz-Ryan & Nakano, 2014). The value for certain solutions can differ from city to city and technology and service providers do not always understand the value of services at the same level as the city government, which makes it difficult to make the right decisions (Nakano, 2015). Evaluating the value is rather important when investing in certain Smart technological solutions, because there are many different solutions available which are not all proven to be successful or will only add value within a certain environment, as every city deals with their own issues.
2.1.3 Challenges for the public sector
Bélissent (2010) also describes challenges related to the public sector, which is the driver of Smart cities. The public sector differs from private organizations, as it needs to deal with another environment, which first of all consists of many stakeholders, namely the citizens of the city. As political influences can change over the years, it is possible that projects will be canceled as the political interpretation changes. The public sector also consists of a limited budget for certain projects. Decisions made for certain projects require a value proposition, which argument that it provides on improving the quality of life for citizens (Belissent, 2010). Those challenges indicate that a well-defined framework for Smart city planning is necessary to help decision-makers in making the right decisions for their city.
2.2 Smart cities strategies
As described Smart cities is a fuzzy subject that is widely discussed in the literature. There is no one-size-fits-all business model when it comes to Smart cities (Letaifa, 2015) (Tratz-Ryan & Nakano, 2015). Gartner discusses there are two strategic approaches on Smart city planning namely (i) Deriving a tactical view, which includes executing small projects, or (ii) Adopting a broader plan that aligns with the plan of the stakeholders, which is distinguished in different levels, starting from infrastructure or data sharing (Tratz-Ryan & Nakano, 2014). Next to those strategies, more strategic frameworks or roadmaps are mentioned in the literature, which are discussed within this chapter.
2.2.1 Known strategies
2.2.1.1 Strategic Smart city Perspective
Schaffers et al. (2012) describe a strategic perspective that should help cities guiding their way in becoming a smarter city. First, cities need to develop a sharing and collaborative culture, where solutions are shared instead of all working separately. Secondly, cities need a long-term perspective instead of thinking in short-term solutions. Thirdly, cities should consider to re-use what they already have and only invest in new solutions if really necessary, to avoid high-cost solutions. Finally, cities should involve the citizens, or users, within the
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development process. There are many ways how citizens can be involved, for example, Living Labs or open innovation platforms. Only then technological offers can align with the user demand and add value to a city (Schaffers, et al., 2012).
2.2.1.2 SMART model
Leitafa (2015) describe a SMART model (figure 2.1) that could be used to strategize Smart cities. SMART stands for Strategy, Multidisciplinary, Appropriation, Roadmap and Technology. First a city should set up a common vision that is relevant for the city according to their challenges. Secondly stakeholders should be identified that can help to achieve the vision. These stakeholders should be from different institutes, with a wide mixture of public and private organizations. Thirdly the social environment should be involved within the Smart city transformation, as the citizens should accept the transformation. Decision-makers should listen to the citizens and discuss what is really necessary within the city to ensure project adoption and success. The last two, namely roadmap and technology, are about describing an action plan on how projects should be implemented and which technologies should be used. However, technologies should be seen as a tool that can help improve the livability. Therefore the customer experience is important to take into account when assigning the technological choices (Letaifa, 2015). Customer experience can be seen as one of the factors that need to be included in a decision-making model for Smart technological solutions.
Figure 2.1 - SMART model of Smart city planning (Letaifa, 2015).
2.2.1.3 Smart city planning roadmap
Komninos et al. (2014) describe a Smart city planning roadmap (figure 2.2) that is focused on user-driven innovation. They also describe that the involvement of citizens, consumers and users is fundamental while implementing Smart city solutions. The roadmap consists of seven steps divided over three stages. The first stage is the components of the Smart city. This stage consist of the first three steps, namely (i) Defining problems and communities of the city, (ii) Define stakeholders that are relevant to those problems and the city, and (iii) Define technologies that can be used for the problems. This third step is also called the horizon scan, where known solutions, or best practices, can be selected that are proven to be successful for certain urban challenges.
Within the second stage, strategy development, only one step is defined. This step includes the elaborating of a strategy to develop the Smart city. The results of this step should be a strategic plan on projects and solutions that will be used and are relevant to the known challenges. The strategic plan includes objectives, scenarios, use cases applications, and collaborative solutions.
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The last stage, implementation, includes three steps, namely (i) development of applications and solutions, (ii) selecting business models for sustainability of the services, and (iii) Measurement of the performance of the implemented changes by monitoring Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Those last three steps are not a linear process, but takes place in circular loops, which affect each other (Komninos, et al., 2014).
2.2.1.4 Smart City Reference Model
Zygiaris (2013) described a Smart city reference model, which should assist city planners in conceptualizing the Smart city. The model can be seen as a planning framework and consists of seven different layers (figure 2.3). Zygiaris uses the conceptualization of Harrison et al., as described earlier in this report and suggests that creating Smart city leadership is key in monitoring the development plan. This leader should consist of executive and policy planning authorities. However, together with that leader, local stakeholders should also be involved to provide a balanced combination of top-down and bottom-up planning.
The first layer in the model, layer 0, is the City layer. As described earlier every city has their situation and environment that will differ from those of other cities. Bélissent described that Smart cities should start with the city and not with Smart initiatives (Belissent, 2010). The Smart initiatives should be in line with the problems and challenges of the specific city. The second layer, namely the Green city, is about providing a sustainable future for the city. Smart and Green cities are mutually connected. Within this layer policy makers are challenged to think about developing a green urban ecosystem. The next layer, The Interconnection layer, as earlier suggested by Harrison et al., is about providing an infrastructure to interconnect people, Smart nodes, workstations and provide network access across the city. The Instrumentation layer is about connecting technologies, which are labeled as the Internet of Things, to the infrastructures that help to gather real-time data about the physical world. The Open Integration integrates data of different services and openly share information gathered by the implemented technologies. The connection of open information from different technological platforms is seen as a key success factor of Smart initiatives. The Application layer consists of the development of intelligent services to optimize the use of the technologies implemented within the other layers. Information needs to be shared in the right way to provide meaning and easily accessible for the citizens of the city. The final layer, the Innovation layer is about creating new business plans, as a Smart city cannot be seen as successful when it is not attractive for new businesses. Urban leaders need to cooperate with innovation strategists to produce new business opportunities, which are necessary to ensure the long-term viability of Smart city initiatives (Belissent, 2010). Together, those layers form a conceptual layout of a Smart city and describe the urban innovation characteristics for every
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layer. Also, the use of the Smart city reference model could help provide a common understanding among Smart city stakeholders and the investment priorities in green and broadband economies (Zygiaris, 2013).
Figure 2.3 - The Smart city Reference model (Zygiaris, 2013).
2.2.2 Technology roadmapping
Technology roadmapping is defined as a needs-driven technology planning process that can help organizations to identify, select and develop technologies, which align with customer needs (Garcia & Bray, 1997). A technology roadmap can help organizations make better technology investment decisions, based on a certain need instead of thinking towards one solution. The process also contributes to the alignment or integration of business and technology, as it aims to find which solutions could serve certain needs (Groenveld, 1997). Technology roadmapping helps in bringing people together from different perspectives of the business to share their knowledge and perspectives. Sharing knowledge and developing one common vision is seen as a key benefit of technology roadmapping (Phaal, et al., 2001). Lee et al. describe technology roadmapping as “a rational methodology for seeking agreement
when selecting technologies supporting organizational goals, and a framework that may be used for establishing and adjusting technology development time lines.” - J. H. Lee, R. Phaal,
and S. Lee, p.3 (288) (2013). Technology roadmapping consists of three phases, namely (i) Preliminary activity, including defining the customer needs and set up a vision, scope and project team, (ii) Development of the roadmap, which includes identifying requirements and technologies, specify their drivers and targets, identify time lines, and set up the technology roadmap, and (iii) Follow-up activity, validating the roadmap and develop and execute an implementation plan. Together with Technology roadmapping, Quality Function Deployment is often used to prioritize customer requirements and find a relation, using a matrix approach, between those requirements and product attributes (Garcia & Bray, 1997).
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Lee et al. have used the Technology roadmapping process to support improved decision-making and describe a mid- to long-term strategic planning for Smart city development.The process consists of the three phases as described earlier in which eight steps are identified, namely (i) Planning, (ii) Demand identification, (iii) Service identification, (iv) Device identification, (v) Technology identification, (vi) Roadmap drafting, (vii) Roadmap adjustment, and (viii) Development and execution of the implementation plan (Lee, et al., 2013). As can be seen in the steps, lee et al. distinguish services (for example, Public Transportation Information Services), devices (mobile device, Intelligent Traffic lights), and technologies (Touch sensors, GPS, RFID) and aim to interconnect one another. For each of them, different assessment indexes, such as business feasibility, importance, complexity, maturity, etc. are described that can help select the services, devices and technologies for a certain need.
2.2.3 Smart city IT investments
Bélissent describes that in order to realize Smart city initiatives, cities should partner with private organizations and invest in all layers of ICT infrastructure (figure 2.4), which can be seen as an opportunity for technological organizations who can offer their products and services for Smart city initiatives (Belissent, 2010). The ICT infrastructure consists of three different layers, which can be compared to the three layers of Harrison et al. The ICT infrastructure includes (i) The infrastructure, which involves sensors etc. to gather information and provide a network to the whole city-area, (ii) The middleware, that stores, integrates and analyses the gathered information, and (iii) Applications, that are necessary to share the information to the citizens of the city, mostly sector-specific solutions. Besides those three layers also the city governance and management should be taken into account, as the management of a system of systems need to be monitored to ensure sustainability (Belissent, 2010).
Figure 2.4 - Cities investment in ICT infrastructure from bottom-up (Belissent, 2010).
2.3 Decision-making processes
As described in this literature review, cities face many challenges when it comes to making decisions on Smart city initiatives. There are many different technological innovations that are pushed by technological vendors. Therefore it is important that CIOs and urban planners avoid getting distracted from achieving their goals and solving the issues the city is facing with processes and people (Velosa & Mok, 2013). Urban planners and decision makers therefore need to critically reflect those technological innovations, as every innovation can
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provide value in different ways for every city. To make such decisions, cities should aim to gather data of the city that can help the decision making process. Data about the city can be collected from sensors, smart phones, the citizens and all linked together with city data repositories, which can all be analyzed to result in the required information for decision-making for better urban governance (Khan, et al., 2013). Government leaders recognize that data has a critical role in strategizing the Digital government, where Digital government can be compared to Smart city initiatives as it both aims to provide sustainability and coordinate services across organizational boundaries (Vining & Howard, 2016). Gartner defines digital government as “a means to greater constituent value as well as increased operational
effectiveness and efficiency” - (Vining & Howard, 2016). By using and reusing data on
innovative ways, business transformations are empowered and the value that is delivered can be more easily recognized by legislative bodies, citizens and the workforce. However, organizing the data that is used is critical as urban planners and decision-makers often face a constant overflow of information (Eraranta & Staffans, 2015). When information is highly organized it can provide more knowledge to the city, which can rise to better decisions. Therefore cities should distinguish explicit and tacit knowledge, gather knowledge from data of the city and from the citizens, keep in touch with the citizens and listen what they want and need to improve their lives (Negre, et al., 2015). Gartner also states that in 2017, 60% of Smart city Internet of Things projects will fail because employees do not adopt to use data in daily activities (Velosa & Mok, 2013).
2.3.1 Selection of technologies
Odendaal (2003) described a framework to compare e-government services of two cities. Within that framework economic development, policy priorities, and technological development are analyzed next to cultural, society and capacity. Odendaal described that when implementing certain technological solutions city managers should take into account the resource availability, capacity and institutional willingness and also the changing culture of the environment (Odendaal, 2003). Gartner suggest that cities should choose innovation projects based on what is best for their particular city, instead of only looking at projects that fit within the vendor ecosystem (Tratz-Ryan & Nakano, 2014).
According to Gartner (2013), Internet of Things solutions that are provided by technological vendors need to be assessed based on Strategy, People, Processes and Technology. It is important that city departments and IT leaders properly work together to avoid having miscommunications about deploying new technologies, because people are not fully aware of the core strategy and tactics that are necessary to accomplish the cities vision. Therefore the first parameter is on strategy, where technologies need to be assessed on their alignment with the cities goals and objectives. Some problems do perhaps not need expensive technological solutions and therefore city leaders should not fall only for the attractiveness of certain solutions. The second parameter, namely people, is about aligning the technologies with the organizations culture. Some solutions will require more organizational change than others. The third parameter is about processes, where the technologies should align with already existing processes and systems that are in use, to avoid installing solutions that require extra resources or will result in new issues while integrating with the existing infrastructure. The fourth and final parameter factor is technology, where the new solutions need to be aligned with the existing technology architectures of the city departments (Velosa & Mok, 2013).
2.3.2 Information system investment criteria
Chou et al. (2006) have done research on Information technology (IT) / Information systems (IS) investment criteria and developed a multi-criteria decision model, including 26 criteria, categorized in external criteria, internal criteria, risk criteria, cost criteria, and benefit criteria (figure 2.5). As technology is a key factor in Smart cities, similar criteria should be used in selecting technologies and information systems in order to become a smarter city.
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Figure 2.5 - IT/IS investment criteria (Chou, et al., 2006).
2.3.3 Risks of gathering personal data
Galdon-Clavell (2013) describes the risks of a surveillance-enabled Smart environment. Smart technologies are mostly technological pushed instead of city-government pulled. Many Smart technologies involve surveillance of the citizens as it is mostly about gathering (personal) data. It is of high importance that data is stored correctly so personal data cannot be misused. Balkan compares a Smart city with a Panopticum: “A prison where you don’t
know if you are being watched, but you can assume you are.” – A. Balkan (2016). Balkan
questions himself if city directors are the only ones using the data and become smarter and if nobody else, like big technological companies, will get smarter from it also. Therefore it is important that when cities are deciding on investing in Smart technological solutions, also security aspects need to be taken into account. Those aspects are informed consent, privacy and data protection, duel use, non-discrimination and responsibility. Informed consent indicates the protection of processing personal data and the free moment of such data of individuals. Privacy and data protection means that only relevant information is gathered with a certain purpose and deleted as soon as possible. Dual use indicates how data is used, namely for both civil and military purposes as well as the possibility of mission creep. Non-discrimination defines that technology does not discriminate and no specific groups will be subject to a particular disadvantage. Finally, responsibility involves achieving socially desirable outcomes (Galdon-Clavell, 2013).
2.4 Innovation in Smart Cities
Innovation can be achieved on various ways, such as the well known top-down or bottom-up approaches. There is a wide discussion on which of the two types is most suitable to the implementation of Smart city technologies (Schuurman, et al., 2012) (Schaffers, et al., 2012). However Schaffers et al. suggest that top-down planning and bottom-up initiatives should complement each other. Open innovation is gaining in popularity. Open innovation can be
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defined as exchanging knowledge and make use of internal and external ideas in various new ways, as internal ideas can be used on outside markets, while outside ideas can be mixed with the current market, to eventually find new business models. Organizations do not try anymore to keep new ideas for themselves and to be the first on the market, as ideas are shared to increase value (Chesbrough, 2003). According to Katila and Ahuja (2002), innovations that are only developed internally, without the involvement of external stakeholders, are less likely to succeed. To introduce new ideas and transform those to new products, people with a different background should be included (Schulze & Hoegl, 2008). Customers or users are seen as the most important resources, or stakeholder when it comes to open innovation (Leimeister, et al., 2014). Cities should create a participatory innovation ecosystem that makes it possible for citizens and communities to interact with public authorities (Oliveira & Campolargo, 2015). Gartner suggest that it is also of very much importance to understand the current level of technological adoption by citizens, in order to know if stakeholders can benefit from the investments made in Smart technological innovations (Velosa & Mok, 2013).
Leimeister et al. (2014) describe three different approaches on open innovation, namely (i) Lead-user method, which implies identifying the lead customers and ingrate them within the innovation process by providing workshops or open meetings to create new ideas and concepts together, (ii) Internet Toolkits, which are software toolkits that can be used by developers to design new solutions, and (iii) Ideas Competition or crowdsourcing, which can be held to gather new innovative ideas and let users vote on which is seen as most suitable and valuable.
2.4.1 Crowdsourcing
Leimester et al. describe that crowdsourcing can be characterized more as a user-driven innovation than the lead-user method as there the specific users are characterized as lead users and therefore the approach can be characterized as an organization- or government-driven approach (Leimeister, et al., 2014). According to empirical research of Schuurman et al., ideas generated through a crowdsourcing competition did not result into new highly innovative ideas, but provide more user benefit than ideas generated by experts. The use of a crowdsourcing platform also helps a city stay in touch with their citizens, to be able to align the city goals and policy, which is of highly importance within Smart cities. However, Schuurman et al. suggest that if highly innovative ideas should be generated, lead users need to be selected based on certain characteristics in order to actively generate the ideas (Schuurman, et al., 2012).
2.4.2 Living labs
According to Schaffers et al. (2012), Smart cities should adopt open and user-driven innovation to become a ‘smarter’ city. A part of such innovation is the use of Living labs, which involves a mixture of stakeholders, namely users of technologies, developers, research institutes, policy makers and investors in an earlier stage of research and development, to create value to new technologies together. Within the Living Lab new technologies can be tested to find out what the possible effects could be on society. As described earlier in the literature review, Smart city development was mostly technology pushed. Living labs create an open and user-driven innovation ecosystem that brings together the necessary combination of digital skills, creativity, and user demands, which are necessary to bridge the gap between technology push and application pull by cities. That same open and user-driven innovation ecosystem is crucial for achieving socio-economic benefits, together with the application of Smart city technologies in business and society (Schaffers, et al., 2012).
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3. CONCEPTUAL SMART CITY FRAMEWORK
Based on the provided literature review, a conceptual framework is conducted that will be used to identify the most suitable Smart technological innovations for Smart city initiatives. Based on the existing Smart city strategic models and the literature about Smart city innovation and IT investment criteria, the following method will be used within this research (figure 3.1).
Figure 3.1 - Conceptual Smart technological selection model.
As can be seen in figure 3.1, the model consists of four different phases, namely (i) Identification, (ii) Classification, (iii) Prioritizing, and (iv) Roadmapping. As described by Schaffers et al. (2012), the development of the Smart city is a continuous process of development and change. This model does also need to be seen as a continuous process where every step can influence the others. Therefore the phases need to be seen more as guideline instead of a linear process, which need to be followed correctly.
As described in the literature review, leadership is key in the deployment of Smart cities (Nam & Pardo, 2011) (Tratz-Ryan & Nakano, 2015) (Zygiaris, 2013). Therefore, all relevant stakeholders need to be mapped together with their interest and responsibility in the Smart city initiative. One leader should be assigned to keep the overview of the deployment. Next to mapping the stakeholders, one holistic vision need to be defined which should be used to focus the Smart city initiative. This vision needs to be aligned with the issues and challenges the city is currently facing, as a Smart city initiative should start with the city and not technology (Zygiaris, 2013).
When the vision, issues, and relevant stakeholders are identified, the issues should be classified based on the six Smart city characteristics namely (i) Smart economy, (ii) Smart people, (iii) Smart governance, (iv) Smart mobility, (v) Smart environment, and (vi) Smart
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living, as a city can only be seen as Smart when it provides information on all six of the characteristics (Letaifa, 2015) (Griffinger, et al., 2007). The city should therefore aim to provide input for all six of the characteristics. When the issues are identified and classified into the characteristics, those issues need to be used to identify Smart innovations, (such as Smart lightning), as cities should make decisions based on the issues the city is facing instead of simply the possibilities a certain solution offers, to provide sustainable growth and user satisfaction (Groenveld, 1997). Also cities should highly assess what kind of Smart innovations are already in use within their city or what kind of infrastructure is available that can be re-used for other purposes, to provide low cost innovations (Schaffers, et al., 2012). When Smart innovations are classified, a city can start prioritizing those solutions.
As many authors suggest, citizen involvement is key when it comes to Smart city initiatives (Letaifa, 2015) (Negre, et al., 2015) (Nam & Pardo, 2011) (Oliveira & Campolargo, 2015) (Schaffers, et al., 2012) (Komninos, et al., 2014) (Leimeister, et al., 2014). Citizens should be involved early into the development process to ensure user satisfaction. Therefore information of the opinion of citizens on their city need to be gathered. Next to the citizens opinion, the city should (i) assess the Smart innovations based on the importance the main stakeholders assign to a particular innovation, (ii) their maturity, as cities should begin with investing in low cost, proven to be successful innovations, (iii) the value the innovation provides to the city as a whole (so not only valuable for one particular department) and the economic feasibility, as those are often not critically evaluated (Galdon-Clavell, 2013), and (iv) the possibility to align a certain innovation with other innovations and share the information between departments and stakeholders within the city, as different systems need to be integrated to provide sustainability (Buck & While, 2015) (Dirks & Keeling, 2009) (Dodgson & Gann, 2011). Based on those criteria, a selection of Smart innovations should be made and prioritized.
When a city has identified the main innovations that are most suitable for their particular environment, the city should start to develop a roadmap on how to implement those innovations. The roadmap provides a plan according to a time frame on when and what should be implemented (Lee, Phaal, & Lee, 2013). By implementing the innovations the city need to make sure those are instrumented, interconnected and intelligent (Harrison, et al., 2010), which means a proper infrastructure is used that is fundamental for the services of the Smart city. Linked to the infrastructure, sensors and devices need to be selected to gather and exchange data. Finally the service requirements need to be identified, as the gathered information needs to be presented properly to provide valuable information. By identifying the infrastructure, technologies and business services, a roadmap can be illustrated, where short-term wins and long-term implementations should be distinguished and the focus should be on long-term development to ensure sustainable growth (Schaffers, et al., 2012).
4. RESEARCH METHOD
Different research methods can be applied to gather data for the research question. To gather data for the research, as suggested in the research proposal, a qualitative study will be applied. A qualitative study allows a researcher to gather any data he observes, read, sees or hears during his study (Maxwell, 2005). At first, to gather data on known strategies of implementing Smart city solutions, a scientific literature review was conducted, as could be seen in chapter two of this thesis. This implies that literature will be compared and analyzed to provide an overview of what Smart cities actually are and how Smart cities arise. According to the available literature, a first model was introduced that provides input on how solutions could be selected and chosen based on a certain context (figure 7 in chapter 3).
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4.1 Case study Reykjavik
To extent the scientific literature, a case study will be conducted where one particular city is investigated that is struggling with becoming a Smart city. A case study involves investigating one particular case. Within the case study, in-depth semi-structured interviews will be held to evaluate the findings of the scientific literature analysis and adjust those findings to eventually be able to describe what influences the selection of the Smart city solutions. The interviews are held with decision-makers of the city of Reykjavik and external stakeholders that have an interest and stake in transforming Reykjavik into a smarter city.
4.1.1 The city Reykjavik
As described in the research paper of Othon et al. (2016) Reykjavik in Iceland is one of those cities that is focussing on improving the ‘smartness’ of the city. Due to a financial crisis in 2008, the volcano eruptions of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in April 2010 and the Grímsvötn volcano in May 2011, Iceland found themselves in a crisis situation. However, those events had a positive influence on the amount of tourists that visits Iceland every year (What ash cloud disruption? Iceland's erupting volcanoes BOOST tourism). Last year the amount of tourists increased with 29% to 1,3 million visitors throughout the year (Tourism in Iceland in figures, 2015). In 2016 the amount of tourists is expected to be around 1,6 million. With only 335.000 inhabitants this amount of tourists has a large impact on Iceland. A lot of those tourists are staying in Reykjavik and need a place to stay and/or a way to mobilise through the city. This large amount of people is one of the reasons that new issues and concerns arise for the city. An example of such a concern is the amount of traffic that goes around in the city (Othon, et al., 2016).
There are many technological solutions available that can be implemented to improve the ‘smartness’ of the city. This introduces the real problem Reykjavik is facing. Because there are so many solutions it is impossible to invest in all, even while the technological innovations become more affordable nowadays (Angelidou, 2015). Reykjavik does not want to approach the implementation as any other IT-project that is done by the government, which will need a lot of time to develop and has a high chance to fail. Therefore a well defined Smart city strategy is required to help decision-makers on selecting the right solutions within a short period of time, to already achieve results short-term.
The conceptual model derived from the literature will be examined within Reykjavik to see how directors of the municipality and relevant stakeholders of the city see a Smart city and think how Reykjavik can become a smarter city. In this case the theoretical model is evaluated in a practical environment to see how a theoretical model will be used in a city that is starting to become a Smart city.
4.2 Interview structure
As described in-depth semi-structured interviews will be held with decision-makers of the city of Reykjavik to evaluate the conceptual framework presented in this thesis. Many different interviews will be held with people from different backgrounds, which make it impossible to use a structured interview, as some people can find it difficult to answer all the questions or can perhaps provide more information on a certain topic. However, to be able to compare all the interviews together and come up with one general conclusion, a certain structure of topics need to be provided. Therefore, a semi-structured interview is conducted in order to address certain topics to the interviewee, but keep the interview open for new insides that the interviewee addresses. The interview structure can be found in Appendix A: Interview structure, of this document.
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4.3 Participants interviews
In cooperation with Óskar J. Sandholt, the director of service and operations of the city of Reykjavik, a list of participants for the interviews was derived (appendix B: List of participants interviews). The participants are selected based on their knowledge and skills and involvement in the Smart city initiative in Reykjavik. Reykjavik started with organizing a working group on Smart cities, which involved many different people from the municipality who together talked about how Reykjavik could become a smarter city. Those people are mainly involved within this research. To provide many inputs from different fields that are relevant to a Smart city, people, mostly managers or directors, from all departments within the municipality are considered and also external stakeholders or expert views, such as the public transportation or local IT companies, are taken into account to get a broad view on how people think of Smart cities and how Reykjavik could become a Smart city. To validate the results of the case study, another interview will be held with B. Boorsma from Cisco, who is the director of Internet of Things and digitalization of Northern cities in Europe.
4.4 Analysis of the interviews
To analyze the interviews, the interviews will be recorded and fully transcribed and are analyzed by mostly using in-vivo coding, which means the same words are used as the interviewee mentioned. If not possible a descriptive code is added to a phrase. To code the interviews, the conceptual model, conducted form the literature study, will be used in order to find the most valuable results. The codes are categorized in the concepts that are addressed in the model, for example, criteria that are mentioned during the interview. By using the conceptual model as foundation for the coding scheme, the results of the different interviews can easier be compared to be able to illustrate one main conclusion. The main results of the interviews in Reykjavik will be summarized in this document.
5. RESULTS
As described in the methodology, interviews were conducted in the city of Reykjavik with many different decision-makers of the municipality and external relevant stakeholders or ‘specialists’ on Smart cities. This chapter includes the main results of those interviews.
5.1 Analysis of the interviews
As described in chapter 4.4 Analysis of the interviews, the interviews are recorded and fully transcribed in order to analyze the interviews. With use of the conceptual framework the transcripts are analyzed in order to find the main results in the interviews. Colors were added to the transcripts, for example red for issues, to highlight the most important phrases of that interview. Secondly, those phrases are provided a code in order to summarize and categories the results of the interview. For every interview the same categories are used and therefore the interviews could be easily compared together. Overlapping codes of different interviews were clustered together to eventually find the main overall results of the interviews (figure 5.1) (Appendix C: Overview combined codes interviews). The people who mentioned certain topics are provided with numbers, for which the right person can be found back in the list of participants. Who said what is also taken into account as certain topics were just about their own field of work and therefore often irrelevant for Reykjavik in general. If a specific topic was mentioned multiple times this could be seen as a main result of the interviews. Other codes that were discussed are compared to the main topics and clustered to get a good overview of what is discussed. The main results are presented within the next chapter for every category. Complete transcripts and coding schemes for every interview can be found in an additional appendix.
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Figure 5.1 - Example of coding scheme after clustering the codes.
5.2 Main findings of the interview
In this chapter the main findings of the interviews in Reykjavik are discussed. The findings are categorized in different categories that are used for all the different interviews, in order to compare the results. The categories are (i) Open view on Smart cities, (ii) The city Reykjavik, which includes the vision, issues, opportunities, advantages and barriers, (iii) Smart city strategy, (iv) Stakeholders, (v) Technology selection criteria and (vi) evaluation of the conceptual model, which was conducted from the literature review.
5.2.1 Open view on Smart cities
The first part of the interviews consisted of an open conversation with the interviewees about what Smart cities actually are. As Smart cities is recognized as a fuzzy concept in theoretical literature it is interesting to see how relevant stakeholders of a Smart city initiative look at the Smart city project. According to the interviews in Reykjavik, Smart city is mostly seen as a fuzzy concept, which can be defined on many different ways. However, basically all interviewees recognized Smart cities as a way to improve the quality of life of citizens and improve efficiency within the city. According to the interviews men can argue that employees of the municipality have basic knowledge on the Smart city concept and know why transforming into a Smart city is useful, but does not yet see how and what kind of Smart city initiatives should be implemented in Reykjavik within the next few years.
5.2.2 The city Reykjavik
To evaluate the theoretical knowledge on Smart cities, the model is evaluated in the city Reykjavik by doing interviews with many different stakeholders of a Smart city project. The stakeholders were asked about what they think should be the vision of the city when it comes to a Smart city initiative and which issues the city is facing a Smart city initiative could be applicable for.
5.2.2.1 Vision and issues of Reykjavik
The goal of Smart cities is of course to improve the quality of life and make life easier and more livable in the city. This vision is also widely recognized in Reykjavik as the main goal of implementing Smart city initiatives. As all stakeholders have a different background, different visions were conducted during the interviews. Every stakeholder was looking to the vision from their own perspective, which concluded in specific visions that are perhaps only applicable for their field of work. However, some general visions could be found during the interviews (table 5.1).
“A Smart city is a fusion between energy, transport and ICT”
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Table 5.1 - Main visions of the city of Reykjavik.
Vision
Be more environmentally friendly by decreasing pollution Eliminate costs and save money, by improving services
Increase efficiency in the city, mostly in traffic by improving mobility Provide more smart and open data/information
Provide a smart city eco-system for businesses
Work across departments/silos within the municipality. Have a holistic view over the city
Working across departments and having a holistic view over the city is a main characteristic of being a Smart city. A city is not Smart when it is only focusing on specific fields within one department, without combining the results with others that could also gain benefit from it. Another main vision that Reykjavik recognizes according to the interviews is improving efficiency, mostly in transportation. Reykjavik is a small but widespread city. J. I. Þorvaldsson, director of the IT department also said Reykjavik should focus on being a more denser city, as more and more people move out of the city centre to suburbs just outside the city, which makes it difficult to provide efficient transportation through the city. The transportation is seen as an issue that, if nothing changes, will escalate in a serious issue. Reykjavik is a car-minded city where a shift to public transportation is preferred. Table 5.2 presents the main issues found according to the interviews in Reykjavik.
Table 5.2 - Main issues of Reykjavik.
Issues
Municipalities departments work in silos
Outgrowth car usage compared to the city infrastructure, Reykjavik as a car-minded city. Lack of public transportation, low frequency in public busses.
Inefficient transportation, traffic lights are time-based.
Tourism growth, which result in new issues, for example, lack of accommodation for tourists and urbanization of tourists in downtown area.
Lack of information on traffic flows
As described, transportation is seen as the main issue in Reykjavik according to the interviews. However, interviewees opinions differ as is questioned if transportation is really an issue. As Reykjavik is a small city it doesn’t know real traffic jams or any other delays compared to other cities in Europe. The only delays in traffic are in the morning and evening, which is commute traffic and is only delayed because cars queue before traffic lights at certain intersections. However, when the travel time is compared to the amount of citizens living in the city, men can argue that it is unacceptable at this moment, even though there are no real traffic jams known. J. S. Rúnarsson, CEO of Straeto, the local public bus transportation organization, also suggests that because of the lack of traffic jams, people are
“One of the coherent reasons is that, kind of the culture is that so many Icelanders just want to live in the country side, but still in the city… They want to have a big garden and
peace and quiet. But still live in the city. That is why it kind of spreads out.”
