Page 939 - Shaping smarter and more sustainable cities - Striving for sustainable development goals

were not following a broad and horizontal strategy, and sector‐specific vertical approaches were
based on separate infrastructures, not interworking with each other while often physically
overlapping. None of these models can satisfy the complex and comprehensive requirement of
future urban management and sustainable development.
Therefore, the original digital systems, as well as the traditional ICT standards, should be improved
or redesigned from a broader and higher level perspective, to achieve the transformational impact
that smart sustainable cities ought to bring about.

The development of SSC standards can be accomplished through cooperation among standards
organizations and the adaption of existing standards, fulfilling the principle of openness,
compatibility and versatility.

4.2 Challenges

In considering the work required to develop SSC standards, it is important to take two key issues
into consideration:
 In addition to ITU‐T, a number of other important standards bodies are working to scope
out and develop SSC standards.
 While international SDOs including ITU are already developing standards in many of the key
technology areas related to smart and sustainable cities, those standards may not
necessarily reflect the complexity of dealing with a smart and sustainable city as a system
of systems, and the specific challenges that this brings. Development of broader perspective
and coordination and collaboration among SDOs will enable earlier and more effective
development of ICT infrastructure.

These two factors indicate the following challenges regarding SSC standards that need to be
addressed:
 The necessity to fulfil the needs of city sustainability in social, economic and environmental
aspects.
 The need to ensure interoperability between different city systems.

 The need to take into account the challenges of complex organizational requirements,
including interfaces between the public sector and commercial organizations, and among
commercial organizations.

 The need for the city to be able to manage issues such as privacy, cyber‐security, resilience,
and data flows on a whole‐system basis.
 The need of non‐specialist city leadership to be able to understand the many, complex and
interrelating ICT issues relating to the move towards a smarter and more sustainable city
and how to put together the right portfolio of standards requirements to ensure that their
projects are able to succeed.

 The need to ensure that standards being developed by study groups within ITU take into
account the requirements of smart and sustainable cities.
 The need to ensure consistency with SSC standards being developed by other international
standards bodies.
 The need to ensure standards organizations are connected with basic (non‐ICT) technical
areas to understand their needs and develop proper solutions.

ITU‐T's Technical Reports and Specifications 929