Today's urban model is becoming increasingly intelligent. Traffic regulators connected to the traffic lights, containers that know how to dispose of rubbish, how to make life easier for people with reduced mobility, automatic lighting adjusting their intensity to reduce consumption ...

 

The ultimate goal is to incorporate technology to make the city more and more livelier for citizens and more respectful for the environment. Six years ago, IESE Cities in Motion analyzes what are the most intelligent cities in the world, taking into account the different parameters. This year, Madrid and Barcelona have been the most valued Spanish cities in the list. The former won a position with respect to the previous year, to position 24, and the latter lost two positions to 28.

 

The Ranking examines each year the level of development of 174 cities in 80 countries in 9 dimensions that are considered to be the keys to progress: economics, human capital, human cohesion, environment, governance, urban planning, international projection, technology and mobility and transport.

Considering all these variables, this year, the world rankings are carried out by London, behind New York, Amsterdam, Paris and Reikiavik. Generally speaking, European cities seem to be transforming cities into a more accessible and digital model: Europe places the first place with the first seven cities with seven cities.

 

World Top 10 Smart Cities:

- London

- New York

- Amsterdam

- Paris

- Reikjavik

- Tokyo

- Singapore

- Copenhagen

- Berlin

- Vienna

 

Madrid and Barcelona are the only two Spanish cities that appear in the top 50 positions. Valencia (61th place), Sevilla (76), Malaga (80) and Palma Mallorca (88) are among the 100 most considered cities. Beyond that, we find Zaragoza (101), Coruña (102), Murcia (105) and Bilbao (107).

Regarding Madril, the report highlights its "commitment to the development of a sustainable city" and mentions two platforms: Madrid Decide (Decides Madrid), "to support democracy" in the management of the city - it has served as a model in other metropolises; and MINT (Madrid IntelliGente, Madrid Intelligent), about each event related to the quality and management of public services in the city to each city council.

 

Barcelona highlights "the growing citizenship of its industrial designers and their popularity in the use of intelligent phones" as well as a "pioneering city through traffic management through big data." Also, the research refers to the C-Mobile project in the field of intelligent transport systems in the field of cooperatives -To increase awareness of the use of food.

 

In general, research shows a tendency for high scores in Spanish cities in mobility, transport and human cohesion categories. As for low scores, all of them, except for Palma de Mallorca, are poorly recognized in the international projection. Among the cities considered as small (between 600,000 and 1,000 inhabitants), Malaga stands out as the fifth best in the category of these cities, with Edinburgh, Quebec, Bratislava and Vilnius.