Infrastructure

Milan considers the idea of a smart city as being not technology-driven, but centred on its citizens. The concept ‘smart city’ for Milan covers smart mobility, a smart environment, and smart inclusion and citizenship. This sets out a bold agenda, which will see the re-orientation of demand for transport services; the standardisation of payment technologies and methods; and the adoption of a range of energy-efficiency solutions.

Lisbon, the capital city of Portugal, has a smart city strategy that places its citizens and their needs at its core. Technology is just a means to an end. The city aims to become smart, sustainable, competitive, participatory, creative, innovative and citizen-centric. Lisbon has drafted an urban development strategy for the coming decades, and has committed to invest EUR 307 million in related projects (Programa Operacional Regional de Lisboa 2020).

The capital city of the United Kingdom unveiled the Smart London Plan in 2011. The Smart London Board is the city mayor’s top line-up of academics, business representatives, infrastructure providers, and ICT and energy companies. It helps the Greater London Authority to shape and implement its strategy for how to apply technology to all areas of city policy (transport, energy, social and infrastructure policy). Smart technology and city data are becoming increasingly prominent in the urban planning discourse.

With a population of 377 587 people and 12 million tourists per year, Florence is not only a place with an impressive artistic heritage and literary history, beautiful landscapes, high-quality fashion and lifestyle, agricultural and gastronomy products, but it also has efficient digital public services, high-level industries in innovation and technology, and excellent training institutes.

The city of Amsterdam has over 850,000 residents from 180 different countries, who own more than 600,000 bicycles. The wider Amsterdam Metropolitan Area has close to 2.5 million inhabitants. The city has a strong commitment to encourage green research, development and investment in sustainable initiatives. As a result, the area is enjoying a rapid uptake of electric transportation and a growing number of companies are developing sustainable products that influence global business. Amsterdam is exceptionally well connected, both physically and digitally.