Page 47 - U4SSC Factsheet, Valencia, Spain, June 2020

Goals and Projects for a Smart and Sustainable Future

The three pillars of the Strategy Valencia 2020 are:
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• smart growth: based on knowledge and innovation economy;
• sustainable growth: effective use of resources, greener and more competitive; and

• inclusive growth: high level of employment, delivering social and territorial cohesion.

In keeping with this, the Valencia City Council has committed to innovation and sustainability as the basis
of its new model of social development that respects citizens and the environment. The city is investing
heavily in smart solutions which connect to its flagship VLCi smart city platform – making Valencia the
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first city in Spain to have a cloud-based internal city management system. The VLCi platform allows the
city to collect data on key indicators for the city’s urban services, analyse it using advanced tools and
then develop dashboards in order to help city service managers draw conclusions and engage in swift
decision-making. This also allows for greater citizen engagement through transparency. As a result,
municipal management has improved in terms of the efficiency of municipal services and the quality of
life for citizens in Valencia. In addition to encouraging citizen engagement, the City Council also wants
to incorporate company participation and organizational input in the provision of urban services. 40

Valencia is committed to deploying a full public transportation fleet based on sustainable mobility in
the next few years, which will help increase the use of public transport and reduce the use of private
vehicles. On the energy side, Valencia is focused on reducing demand and sourcing both electricity
and domestic hot water consumption through renewable energy systems. 41

The Valencia al Minut Dashboard is another undertaking that delivers to citizens real-time information
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on the state of the city, such as: bus routes and frequency; traffic conditions; public parking capacity;
levels of pollutant particles in the air; weather forecasts; Valenbisi city bike rental service availability;
employment rate data; and cultural news. The dashboard is supplemented by a mobile application,
AppValencia, which integrates all the information related to the city and provides citizens and tourists
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with the ability to communicate directly with City Council. Another function of the dashboard is the
creation of further dashboards for municipal staff use, with the aim of ensuring better decision-making
in management toward the environmental and economic sustainability of the city.
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Valencia is also focusing on broader European projects such as IMPULSO VLCi and MatchUp, along
with more than 17 smart projects that involve entire city hall departments in scope.

Tourism will be further supported through a new Smart Tourism project that will install connected NFC
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smart readers along 300 points of frequent use throughout the city, such as museums, monuments, and
tourism businesses. In addition to the information that these readers will provide tourists, a network
of 5 smart tourist information offices will be in operation 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, where tourists
and visitors can consult information, purchase products or services, etc.

The GIS Portal is a related project that showcases the existing resources of the Valencia City Council
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on a map. It displays, in progressive levels of detail, geographical information for different municipal

U4SSC Factsheet | Valencia, Spain | June 2020 41