Page 24 - Reference framework for integrated management of an SSC - A U4SSC deliverable on city platforms

• The Smart City market is still too solution-centric. The created solutions must be more focused
on the needs of the city and citizens. By addressing this mismatch, we can better incentivize
suppliers to provide what is needed and encourage greater diversity in the market. Cities can
accelerate this by defining their “use cases”: descriptions of how and why they see a value or
“use” of smart infrastructure. These use cases will be familiar to many cities; sharing experiences
can speed up this process.

• Investment is a challenge: Investment in infrastructure is irregular (discontinuous) and often
focuses on specific solutions, not on the city’s bottom line. There is a lack of proven business
models that provide security to private investors. It is not easy to demonstrate a return on
investment for technology that is often less than five years old.

• Interaction with private smart infrastructure is limited: While city authorities will be responsible for
implementing the most visible smart infrastructure on the street, much of the smart infrastructure
in a city will be privately owned. Depending on how these assets are managed, the municipality
may have little control or oversight of this technology and its uses.
• Interoperability between different systems: A barrier to achieving the full impact of massive
data use and a genuinely interconnected city is the challenge of interoperability between the
various systems and platforms within that city. This challenge is amplified in large, fragmented
cities with multiple layers of public sector agencies.
• Public perception can be harmful: A good example is the conspiracy theory that “5G causes
COVID-19”; but even at the lower end of the spectrum, many people associate smart technology
with a surveillance culture and an invasion of privacy. More open and honest discussions
between municipalities and citizens are the key to generating public support to help the public
understand the value of services, improvements, and benefits that smart infrastructure can
provide.

• Ethics and Transparency: To ensure that the technology that cities implement does not affect
people’s privacy or cause further inequalities in society, we must ensure that technology is
taken care of ethically and provides a transparent and accountable smart infrastructure. This is
particularly important when it comes to data collection and use. Strong governance and clear
guidelines are needed to address these challenges at the start-up stage.

• While most officers know what cybersecurity is and some of the problems that its lack can cause,
their understanding of how to approach cybersecurity when putting an intelligent infrastructure
up and running in a city is still low. Knowledge is often found solely in teams or individuals.
The government’s orientation in this area improves, but it remains complex. A more targeted
approach to this challenge is needed, including cybersecurity principles established by national
governments and the use of pre-verification at the procurement stage.

10 Reference framework for integrated management of an SSC | June 2023