Page 32 - Reference framework for integrated management of an SSC - A U4SSC deliverable on city platforms

From the organizational point of view, local ICT structures are imposed (support and centralized
and external development) and, more specifically, for the obtaining, management, systematization
and interpretation of the data obtained through the systems involved.

In this sense, it must be considered that data collection can be done unconsciously (for citizens)
and anonymously or directly through their participation in the participatory processes established
or promoted by the administration itself.

The responsible municipal organization (services, personnel, and specific data-management
platforms) will necessarily be different, requiring in the first case – except in the cases of contracting
– much greater technical specialisation, as well as guarantees, fundamentally in terms of data
protection (principles of access to minimum data, protection by design of management and
anonymization applications and segregation of data to guarantee their privacy).

Nevertheless, and aligned with the human-centred design approach, the smart and sustainable city
strategy must expand this concept to users of the city in general, a broad category inside which
tourists need to be considered, given that they too interact with the services articulating the urban
space. In their inclusion, cities must set in motion participation mechanisms through which, after
identifying the main tourism stakeholders, digitalization initiatives are designed collaboratively, in
order to generate solutions fitting their realities, paying special attention to sensitive actors such
as SMEs and residents.

Consequently, there are examples of departments or Specialized Areas of Innovation and Urban
Digitalization, whose functions include those related to Intelligent Management Systems, the
digitisation of services or the incorporation into large municipal networks of knowledge and
technologies, or of a more generic nature, as well as Open Data portals, whose objectives include
transparency, the re-use of public information, the generation and incentive of economies and the
promotion of new innovative services.

2.6 Strategic planning

The first characteristic note of the governance models of Smart Cities could easily be the need
for a strategic vision/planning of the city and its future, and its necessary implementation through
objectives and measures of practical innovation (integrated strategies of action that have to start,
precisely, from the global perception of the state of the city previously obtained) with the central
objective of achieving more advanced and efficient management of municipal services.

The Smart City cannot result from improvisation or government changes at the local level. A
preliminary design and strategy are imposed, and in the medium to long term, of its evolution,
growth and transformation obtained through processes of broad citizen participation, and with
clear and affordable objectives.

The deployment of intelligent networks and infrastructures, the high investment cost, the associated
environmental protection measures, and so on, require their insertion or, at least, the prior approval

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