Last month Evercity team took part in the third meeting of United for Smart Sustainable Cities (U4SSC) initiative that took place in Malaga, Spain. Among the panel discussions on the latest trends in smart city field and workshops, an award ceremony took place, during which three cities were granted certificates for following ITU standards that make a city smart and sustainable: Singapore, Bizerte (Tunisia) and Pully (Switzerland).
While it’s no wonder that Singapore is one of the world’s smartest cities, many would be surprised to see a tiny city of 18,000 inhabitants on the same list.
Pully’s case illustrates the common misconception that only the biggest megapolises of the world currently aim at implementing smart solutions in the urban environment. If you hear «smart cities», your first association would probably be Singapore or United Arab Emirates — however, small towns are joining the trend more actively with every new year.
It is true that big cities face multiple challenges linked with large population numbers and for them «smart» technologies are rather a necessity nowadays, than a luxury.
While it might seem optional for small towns to implement cutting-edge technologies for infrastructure optimisation, but doing so they pursue one more important goal: making towns more attractive and thus bringing in new inhabitants and visitors.
Pully stepped on its «smart» path way back in 2015, having collaborated with Swisscom — a major telecommunications provider — on the collection of mobile phone data in order to improve traffic flows in the town an optimising road systems.
By far it has been very successful in complying with the standards introduced by U4SSC initiative in new expert guidance last year, and we hope that we will soon see more small towns following Pully’s example to comply with international guidelines and take their places among smart and sustainable cities of the world.
