Smart City

The Smart City Workgroup of the Digital Innovation Observatories of the Politecnico di Milano is founded in 2021 leveraging the experience developed over the years by the Internet of Things, Digital Agenda, and 5G & Beyond Observatories on the connected and “intelligent” city topic. The Workgroup aims to investigate Smart City related opportunities, combining the technology perspective with that of the actual development of projects and applications for Public Sector bodies and for citizens. For this, networking and discussion opportunities between companies and the PS (Cities, Regions, Institutions) involved in the various workshops will be created.

For the 2022/2023 edition ending May 2023, the Smart City Observatory aims to focus Research on 3 topic areas:

Application scenario

• Application areas and projects: Italian application scenario and comparison with other countries, analysis of the benefits enabled in the various application areas (Smart Lighting, Smart Waste Management, Smart Parking, ...); analysis of startups operating in Smart City, and of the most innovative business models
• City hall’s point of view: analysis of Cities' projects and future intentions, progress of Smart City projects in Italy, major obstacles, achievable benefits, most widespread technologies;
• Startups: Analysis of national and international startups operating in the Smart City field, and of innovative business models
• Quantifying the market: estimate the value and order of magnitude of the Smart City market in Italy, focusing on the most widespread application areas

Innovation trends

• Valorizing data and management platforms: analyze the value of information collected in field by Smart City projects, focusing on data management platforms, interoperability, and data control room
• Services impact and usability: analyze the benefits of Smart City projects (economic, social, environmental) and the degree of usability of services by end users (citizens, businesses, public authorities..)

Context

• Public contracts and NRRP funding: most widespread financing models, monitor public tenders and funds assigned by the NRRP (National Recovery and Resilience Plan) to intelligent cities.

Smart City Workgroup Research is based on:

• a survey of Smart City related projects in Italy and worldwide;
• a survey of startups operating in the Smart City sector in Italy and worldwide;
• a survey addressed to Italian City Halls to learn more about current projects, application areas, and issues encountered in implementing Smart City projects;
• multiple benefit estimation models enabled by Smart City technologies in various application areas (Smart Lighting, Smart Waste Management, Smart Parking, …);
• interviews and case studies of most innovative Smart City projects.