Page 6 - U4SSC Compendium of survey results on integrated digital solutions for city platforms around the world

Executive summary

The United for Smart Sustainable Cities (U4SSC) initiative is a global platform dedicated to
supporting cities in becoming smarter and more sustainable. The U4SSC is coordinated by the
International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
(UNECE) and the United Nations Human Settlement Programme (UN-Habitat), with the support of
14 other UN bodies.

Smart city platforms (SCP) are becoming new digital urban infrastructure that facilitate the
implementation of smart city strategies to support new and additional city needs, while also
assisting with the efforts of addressing targets contained in the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs). Smart city platforms provide cities with a technological base to incorporate a multitude of
elements that can enable a city's digital transformation to help achieve the city’s internal objectives,
facilitate informed decision-making by policy-makers and promote cost-efficient and effective city
operations. It has served as the blueprint for evolution, supporting the transition from fragmented
urban operations to integrated management with data as the main asset.

Illustrated by success stories, this document presents the experience of cities, communities
and municipalities participating in the U4SSC initiative in developing their smart city strategies,
the governance of smart projects, and the principal role of a smart city platform (or set of key
components that constitute it) in contributing to improving the lives of their citizens.

The cities also described the technical-administrative and project management organizations
that support their city’s strategy, as well as their competencies. They defined their commitment to
standards (in the procedural and technological aspects) and the use of ICTs in the management
of U4SSC key performance indicators (KPIs). Finally, the smart sustainable cities described their
relationship with their citizens, the innovation ecosystem and the networks they worked with for
the design, sharing and replication of smart and sustainable city solutions.

The selection of the use-cases has been conducted to highlight the experiences and results from
various cities across the globe, with the expectation that this will provide considerable value for
others that are exploring the domain or planning the adoption of a city platform.

The following sections include the experience of the selected cities (across geographic regions)
concerning their city platforms and other strategic aspects of interest. Additionally, the related
compendium includes the complete documentation provided by each city that participated in the
elicitation exercise for the development of this report.

iv Compendium of survey results on integrated digital solutions for city platforms around the world