Page 98 - U4SSC Compendium of survey results on integrated digital solutions for city platforms around the world

It is based on the conviction that an urban platform should not remain in the research or proof-
of-concept domain but is a fundamental element of integrated city management and that its
implementation requires a public contract that supports its consolidation over time with its own
support team.

The technology on which the majority of non-administrative city services are deployed is usually
offered by large contractors. As a result, municipal services have had little access to data and no
knowledge and control of ICT systems and, therefore, no capacity to integrate it into the city’s
management practices.

Among the main barriers to this consolidation has been the management of change that requires
contractual evolution and the adaptation to new organizational and technological processes
needed to manage cross-sectoral services on an urban platform. It is very important to have officials
responsible for this, with support from the government team.

As soon as city services begin to use the services and solutions offered by the urban platform
and obtain adequate support in their technological transformation, a turning point occurs in the
structure of the urban platform and the smart city office as an element in the digital transformation
of the city.

The effect of articulating the use of the platform and the support project team on a major public
tender prompted the main companies to improve their solutions and strengthen their commitment
to this sector. In the case of Valencia, the public tender was won by the Telefónica company, which
has become a benchmark for these types of services in the sector, and the collaboration between
this large company and the city has produced a multitude of synergies and benefits for both entities.

Membership in smart city networks, the exchange of good and bad experiences in this area, and
the commitment to standards have also contributed to the success.

10.7 Stakeholders’ involvement

The choice of Telefónica's Thinking City platform based on the FIWARE open ecosystem is backed
by robust technological support, which guarantees technological evolution over time.

Thanks to an open architecture and the clarity of smart clauses in a standardized connection
procedure, municipal service management companies can send automated information on the
operation of the service, as well as on the fulfilment of their contract to the city platform.

With support from the European MatchUP project, the Polytechnic University of Valencia uses
the city platform to develop different APIs and flows through the city's systems, exploiting digital
technology sensors, mobile applications and social networks. In future, all new developments
will be provided as open APIs of value-added urban services that can be seen as building blocks
to improve city management. The data generated by the project will be published as open data,
taking into account privacy and security.

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