Within the EU’s HORIZON 2020 Programme, the CITYKeys project is being developed, an initiative that seeks to develop a results evaluation system through which to measure Smart City solutions in the EU. Research institutes from Finland, Austria, and the Netherlands work together with five European cities – Rotterdam, Tampere, Vienna, Zagreb, and Zaragoza – to define needs, analyse results and assist in the use of performance indicators that will evaluate such solution.
Thanks to this project, it is hoped that urban environments can benefit from the CITYKeys strategic plan to become smarter while responding to the needs of citizens and making intelligent use of local budgets. Among the objectives of this initiative is the development of guidelines for data collection, the creation of a prototype of measurement, testing in different cities, preparation of recommendations for decision making and the development of new business opportunities directed both to cities and to businesses.
The European Commission has developed two parallel approaches to addressing and assisting in the implementation of smart urban technologies: On the one hand, the creation of “flagship projects” (e.g. large-scale demonstration of technology in cities and communities) and in addition, the realisation of “horizontal activities” that respond to concrete challenges (regulatory barriers, standardisation or public procurement).
In each case, the mission of CITYKeys is to create a methodology to evaluate and compare in a transparent way the different activities that take place during the implementation of smart city solutions, it is based on the following factors:
– Collaboration and extensive communication between European municipalities.
– Establishment of a baseline for the analysis and integration of the results of previous initiatives.
– Development of a set of specific KPIs (performance indicators) to evaluate and compare Smart City projects.
– Intelligent solutions for the collection and processing of open data in a transparent method.
What #kpi do #smartcities need to measure projects' success? @DigitalAgendaEU @EUSmartCities http://t.co/vdofnbemcK pic.twitter.com/4lzfpnoMdl — CITYkeys project (@citykeys_eu) September 14, 2015
Through this methodology it is intended to monitor the progress of activities, to verify the real impact of the developments, to generate confidence in the solutions and to allow the stakeholders to learn from the experience of other projects in Europe. The calculation system uses 116 data sets, rigorously analysing the sources from which they come, checking their availability, reliability, existing formats, access methods and level of confidentiality.
The five partner cities play an important role in CITYKeys not only because they are the first localities to apply and verify the effectiveness of the evaluation system, but also for their experience in smart city policy development and identification of business opportunities, as is the case of the incubator La Terminal in Zaragoza that promotes entrepreneurship in the municipality.
In addition to this action plan, CITYKeys has produced a report on the smart city ecosystem in Europe. According to data extracted from the study, two-thirds of the cities consulted claim to have some project in progress in this area, mainly related to ICT, mobility and energy efficiency.
If you would like to know more about the project you can visit their website: http://www.citykeys-project.eu/