Page 8 - U4SSC Factsheet, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, June 2020

Riyadh: Key Findings from across the KPIs

• To further optimize a smart, sustainable ICT infrastructure, Riyadh could utilize related ITU standards,
such as Recommendation ITU-T Y.4901/L.1601: ‘KPIs related to the use of ICT in smart sustainable
cities’ and Recommendation ITU-T Y.4902/L.1602: ‘KPIs related to the sustainability impacts of
ICT in smart sustainable cities’. Also useful are ITU-T L.1400: ‘Overview and general principles of
methodologies for assessing the environmental impact of ICTs’ and ITU-T L.1440: ‘Methodology for
environmental impact assessment of ICTs at city level’. For the expansion of high-speed broadband,
for example, in any rural areas, the ITU-T Recommendations Y.3000 to Y.3499: ‘Future networks’
can help guide forward-looking implementation. Planning for public networks, including WIFI, can
be assisted through use cases found in Recommendations such as ITU-T Y.4113: ‘Requirements of
the network for the Internet of things’.

• Public sector KPIs can be measured and reported so that their performance can be compared to
the appropriate benchmarks.

• Riyadh’s public sector is its largest employer, employing more than one-third of the city’s workforce,
and is the source of approximately half of Riyadh’s total production of goods and services. The city,
therefore, can play an important role in increasing ICT sector employment and investing further
to foster innovation, utilize community resources and drive economic growth. As Riyadh works on
meeting the digital goals of the Saudi Vision 2030 strategy on implementing smart alternatives to
unify government services, there is a particular opportunity to create and retain a larger smart
workforce locally.

Why not help improve quality of life for your citizens or evaluate the urban functionality
of your own city by piloting the U4SSC KPIs? Contact us at u4ssc@ itu .int to find out more!

• The city could continue to control its rate of non-revenue water through the employment of best-
practice water-loss accounting methods and through policies that mandate conservation of the
city’s water resources. Increasing the number of smart water meters, and recording and reporting
data on the implementation of ICTs to monitor its water distribution systems, will also help the city
to plan for greater water supply efficiencies.

• Riyadh's electrical supply management is effective, with little interruption and the prevalent use of
ICTs to monitor the electrical supply systems. The city could also consider rolling out the installation
of more smart electricity meters in homes and buildings, and continue progress on implementing
the planned demand response and energy storage capability to achieve agile and responsive energy
supply management in the future.

• The city could investigate the use of sustainability certification programmes for on-going building
operations. Riyadh may consider implementing Recommendation ITU-T L.1370 ‘Sustainable and
Intelligent Building Services’, and contributing to the development of draft Recommendation ITU-T
L.SP_OB ‘A methodology for improving, assessing and scoring the sustainability performance of
office buildings’.

2 U4SSC Factsheet | Riyadh, Saudi Arabia | June 2020