Tools supporting City Planners

Be sure to check out the 1-page flyer for the adobe_pdf_file_icon_24x24 Smart City Toolbox, for City Planners!

A short intro to these tools was given at the final review meeting of the project in February 2019:

 

Smart City Strategy Framework

Based on literature on governance, implementation and infrastructure, we have developed an analytical framework for analyzing smart city strategies, called “Smart City Strategy Framework”. The framework provides comparative ground in an international context and supports the formulation of new strategies.

Smart City Strategy Framework
Smart City Strategy Framework

The framework consists of a morphological box, with the 19 elements grouped into 4 dimensions: City context, governance, implementation and infrastructure. For each element, 2-6 possible manifestations are defined. Morphological analysis is a well-suited method for studying and analyzing complex problem fields that are inherently non-quantifiable, contain non-resolvable uncertainties, cannot be casually modeled or analyzed, and require a judgmental approach. Devising a smart city strategy represents such a problem. In a morphological box, all important elements are listed, and for each element, possible manifestations are identified, resulting in the definition of a multi-dimensional solution space.

With an initial version of the morphological box we analyzed our six stakeholder cities. The qualitative comparison of the six cities shows a number of similarities, as e.g. the predominance of government-driven approaches or the relevance of platforms. Context and concrete goals of smart cities activities may vary: The motivation is primarily increasing the quality of life, with technological and economic emphasis. While smart city activities still address primarily environmental pressures, demographic and economic issues are continuing to grow in importance. Citizen-involvement in the sense of co-creation is yet at a very low maturity level.

Additional resources:

 

Smart City Applications Blueprint Template

Since every city has specific characteristics, smart city applications are not transferable without adaption to its context. The Smart City Application Blueprint Template at hand supports such an adaption well. The template guides through the problem-solving cycle and assists in the abstraction and concretization process of a smart city application and with that help in the adaption process.

Smart City Canvas
Smart City Canvas

The blueprint template covers important categories along the value chain of smart city applications. The objective of the blueprint template is to create a description of the system without enforcing specific implementation methods. It considers processes, architecture views, hardware, software, possible project and communication plans. Further aspects support the creation of public value within a smart city application as well as the operation and optimization of an application set in place.

Of particular interest are:

  • The Smart City One-Pager, giving a summary and overview of the blueprint and its use case. The One-Pager guides through the development of the application and shows which aspects need to be re-evaluated when adapting an existing blueprint to another city.
  • The Smart City Canvas. Based on Osterwalder & Piguer’s Business Model Canvas (BMC) – a well-recognized tool in the business world for the creation of innovations and the associated development of new business fields – it helps a city to capture the esseance of the planned application. Its focus is not in creating profit like the BMC, but rather in creating public value.

Additional resources: