Smarter Together: Progressing Smart Data Platforms in Lyon, Munich, and Vienna

Abstract

In a context where digital giants are increasingly influencing the actions decided by public policies, smart data platforms are a tool for collecting a great deal of information on the territory and a means of producing effective public policies to meet contemporary challenges, improve the quality of the city, and create new services. Within the framework of the Smarter Together project, the cities of Lyon (France), Munich (Germany), and Vienna (Austria) have integrated this tool into their city’s metabolism and use it at different scales. Nevertheless, the principle remains the same: the collection (or even dissemination) of internal and external data to the administration will enable the communities, companies, not-for-profit organizations, and civic administrations to “measure” the city and identify areas for improvement in the territory. Furthermore, through open data logics, public authorities can encourage external partners to become actors in territorial action by using findings from the data to produce services that will contribute to the development of the territory and increase the quality of the city and its infrastructure. Nevertheless, based on data that is relatively complex to extract and process, public data platforms raise many legal, technical, economic, and social issues. The cities either avoided collecting personal data or when dealing with sensitive data, use anonymized aggregated data. Cocreation activities with municipal, commercial, civil society stakeholders, and citizens adopted the strategies and tools of the intelligent data platforms to develop new urban mobility and government informational services for both citizens and public authorities. The data platforms are evolving for transparent alignment with 2030 climate-neutrality objectives while municipalities strive for greater agility to respond to disruptive events like the COVID-19 pandemic.