Smart City KPIs: Digital Transformation Must Benefit Residents
The panel discussion “Smart City KPIs: New Standard of Quality,” held on October 10 as part of the business program of the Second Global Digital Forum, explored how to measure a city’s development.
According to the United Nations, nearly 70% of the world’s population will live in cities by 2050. Cities are becoming “smarter” every year. But how should we measure the effectiveness of digital technology: by quantitative indicators or by its impact on people’s everyday lives? Are there common standards for key performance indicators (KPIs), and how do they evolve over time? Experts addressed these and many other questions.
The discussion was moderated by Vasily Zudin, advisor to the vice president of Rostelecom and director of international business development at the Center for Global IT Cooperation.
Nicholas You, advisor to the mayor of Guangzhou and executive director of the Guangzhou Institute for Urban Innovation in China, noted that the first generation of smart cities emerged in the early 2000s and focused on the basic automation of essential systems. In the 2010s, big data analytics became part of the development of digital urban spaces. A decade later, AI-powered modeling entered the picture. But a city’s progress should not be measured by the number of digital solutions it deploys. What matters is how residents rate their impact.
“People must always come first when we measure performance. Of course, that’s easy to say but hard to put into practice. We analyze 80 companies and service providers across 44 countries, and only 5% of them mention people in their KPIs at all. Usually, the focus is on cubic meters of water delivered, kilometers of pipes laid, and so on. We cannot enter the digital age without bringing everyone along. Local leaders and civil society leaders need to be involved,” the speaker said.
Digital transformation must serve residents’ interests. São Paulo offers a telling example. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the city simplified the process of obtaining a street-trading license by creating a dedicated mobile app.
“Some of the goods being sold are subject to taxes that need to be regulated. Why not develop a simple platform where people can go and say, ‘I want to take part’? Then they can move on to another event. It should take just minutes to get a permit. São Paulo hosts thousands of events every year,” said Thiago Luz, commercial director of Brazil’s PRODAM-SP.
São Paulo has achieved platinum status under three key international ISO standards. The city was assessed against 258 indicators out of a possible 276. But cities should not be measured against the same universal standards in every respect, argued Edlam Abera Yemeru, director of the Knowledge and Innovation Branch at UN-Habitat. KPIs need to be tailored to each city: some are only beginning their digital transformation, while others have already made significant progress, so comparing them on equal terms makes little sense. Moreover, only 37% of cities worldwide have established monitoring systems for initiatives aimed at implementing their digital projects. In African countries, the figure is just 21%. In other words, the technology is there, but its results are not being tracked.
Daniel Oscar Baskoro, senior advisor for smart city at Indonesia’s Nusantara Capital Authority, also stressed the importance of measuring the real-world impact of innovation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Indonesia launched the PeduliLindungi app to help curb the spread of the disease. More than 100 million people began using it. The app later evolved into a unified national platform for medical data, electronic health records and digital health services. The technology was subsequently adopted by 150 countries.
Moscow is also actively sharing its digital expertise.
“Moscow is trying to turn its know-how into standards. We are particularly strong in standards for the use of artificial intelligence in health care, including the analysis of MRI scans and X-ray images. Take video surveillance and computer vision, for example. We have standardized the procedures for detecting dirty roads, trash on streets and graffiti on walls. We are translating these standards into English so they can be available to everyone,” said Dmitry Ontoev, advisor to the head of the Moscow Department of Information Technologies.
The speakers agreed that the most important measure of a smart city is a positive change in residents’ lives. A KPI is not simply a technology accompanied by a number. It is what that technology delivers for ordinary city residents.
