Open Innovation 2.0 Yearbook 2013 - European Commission - Europa

There is, however, a general agreement on the
fact that ICTs are the core of a modern city which
aims to be called ‘intelligent’ or ‘smart’. The human
component, reflected in the activity and creativity
of citizens and policy, as well as the entrepreneurship
component are important additional factors in
defining a smart city. The triangle of ‘technology–
people–government’ is becoming a strong basis for
a modern intelligent city.
With the help of technology, the everyday life of
ordinary citizens can be significantly improved
through the provision of new services. In return,
citizens can input to the process with creative contributions.
Looking at the city as at a ‘system of
systems’ allows for a new perspective distinguishing
two parallel essential layers of modern urban
mobility: a physical/infrastructural layer — with
roads, transport and parking facilities — and a virtual
layer, based on ICT and data development.
Knowledge-based businesses can benefit from
this smart environment by finding inspiration in an
intelligent ecosystem, providing smart solutions
to inhabitants and, hence, driving growth. A smart
government, which supports innovative businesses
by creating proper policymaking solutions while
facilitating its relations with and among businesses
and inhabitants, will go a long way.
Role and importance of
data for a smart city
According to IBM, the digital universe will grow to
8 zettabytes by 2015: data is the next big thing, the
‘new oil’. However, like crude, it needs to be refined
to be used in a meaningful way to provide for value
creation.
This also applies to the ways (smart) cities are handling
‘their’ data resources.
Every day, a modern city generates and collects
a lot of data. All this data can become a prominent
driving force in increasing urban sustainability
through ICT technologies. Providing relevant
updated information can actively assist people in
changing and rationalising their daily behaviour
and, especially, so-called open data can bring social
and economic added value if linked and combined
with other public data resources such as crowdsourcing
platforms and social networks.
The number of countries around the globe that are
including the ‘open data’ concept in their political
and administrative agenda is increasing dramatically.
Most of the time, authorities implement open
data strategies to increase transparency, citizen
participation and government performance efficiency
[6]. But, most importantly, the use of open
data brings economic benefit and business growth
as new, high-value services can be built on top of
it. This is particularly important at a time of economic
crisis because open data provides a major
new asset at no significant cost.
International organisations such as the Organisation
for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) [7], and Unesco [8] also have started to promote
open access to information and knowledge.
Even though, in the case of Unesco, it is mostly
about the right of access to scientific information,
the main idea of ‘open access [being] about Freedom,
Flexibility and Fairness’ [8] can apply to all the
open data types.
Open data arrived on the EU agenda in 2003 with
the release of a pan-European directive on public
sector information reuse or — shortly — the public
sector information (PSI) directive [9]. The document
promotes the idea of reusing and sharing data free
of charge or, at least, not exceeding the marginal
costs.
As a matter of fact, the EU institutions strongly
support the view that public sector information —
including geographical and public transport data —
should be open and available across borders.
The Commissioner responsible for the European
Digital Agenda implementation, Neelie Kroes,
accentuated the idea that data is a kind of new fuel
for society nowadays: ‘Data is new oil for a digital
era’ [10]. A number of free and paid services and
applications can be built on the top of public sector
information. By opening up governmental data, it is
possible to provide stakeholders with an amount of
new economic, political and social values, desperately
needed for modernising societies in the EU.
We will look at the real-life European case further.
Nevertheless, different authorities in different countries
have their particular views, motivations and
official positions on whether they make their PSI
available or not. Even if some data are available,
it’s up to the national authorities as to which terms
and conditions are imposed on the information to
be reused, from completely open access to limited
or charged access [11].
Many cities now have started to provide data on
official transport websites. Very often, citizens can
also find interactive maps and journey planners on
these websites, which help to calculate the travel
time and cost per city trip. Updates on planned
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