Page 32 - Shaping smarter and more sustainable cities - Striving for sustainable development goals

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A smart city is therefore a "predictive city" where specific incidents, events or scenarios can be
anticipated, the end result being an improved quality of life, or allowing citizens to make more
informed and educated decisions on what actions to take next.

c. Data accessibility and management
Data and information availability are vital for the functioning of any smart solution. Access to data
must be possible under any circumstance, thus enabling corresponding actions to be taken by city
officials. This is particularly important in the case of emergency and crisis situations.
Cross‐scale information sharing using ICTs as platforms allows policy makers and officials from
different sectors to base their decisions on common information, and undertake coordinated
courses of action. Such data exchange not only strengthens the collaborative efforts between
departments and sectors, but could also be used as part of critical assessments and forecasting of
various emergencies, as well as to optimize any smart solutions implemented in the city.
Therefore, it is recommended for city managers to base the implementation of smart solutions on
appropriate policies and governance structures that can support and sustain such efforts in the
short, medium and long term. The following are some of the key components that ensure data
accessibility and management in SSC:
 Accessibility to data: There is a need for schemas that will promote openness and accessibility
to data. While there will always be a concern in terms of “privacy” and the proprietary nature of
data, most 'sensitive' data can perhaps be made anonymous before being made accessible. This
question of balancing the need for both privacy and accessibility is still not well understood in
terms of a legal and regulatory framework and needs to be addressed in the design of smart
sustainable cities.

 Open data: It is recommended that data on energy, utilities, transportation, and other basic
datasets are to be made public. This is vital in facilitating the cross‐scale information sharing
component of a smart city that was suggested above. Information sharing allows better
operational decisions to be made and implemented. It is equally important to note that all data
should be presented in a consistent and standardized manner. It is only when all data is based
on the same parameters that it allows for meaningful exchanges and decision making, such as
in the case of open application programming interfaces (APIs).
 Managing massive data: Cities come in various sizes and so does the information associated
with them. To get an accurate view of the data from various sources and various places, this
information usually comes in huge packets and should be able to provide accuracy, analytical
capabilities, data security, and data storage. Therefore, data needs to be managed using highly
efficient database constructs.

 High performance: Creating new insights from massive volumes of data needs to be
complemented with digital infrastructures that are capable of high performance. Large amounts
of data can place a lot of pressure on the workload and operational capacity of existing devices.
To make the task optimal, the ICT systems should be reliable, ensure precise data transmission,
minimize downtime, and avoid system failure. In cases of failure, the solution should be ready
to handle and recover from error.

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34 Personal Communications, Rob van den Dam, IBM Institute for Business Value, ITU Telecom World 2013.

22 ITU‐T's Technical Reports and Specifications