Smart Cities in Wallonia: What’s the trend in 2018?
A first 100% Walloon barometer for 2018
At the occasion of the Salon des Mandataires - an annual event for local political life in the south of our country - organised in February 2018, our research team presented the results of a new Smart City barometer, 100% Walloon. The aim of this report is to identify the major trends that are emerging in Wallonia and to present the key figures that symbolise the state of mind of Walloon municipalities.
After a first exploratory barometer in 2017 on a national scale, this study, representative of the Walloon territory (in terms of location (provinces) and nature (rural and urban: OECD criteria), has enabled to collect the perceptions of nearly a quarter of our municipalities. Through this research, general managers, Smart City managers, heads of services and municipal directors - in majority - expressed themselves on :
- their perception of the smart city phenomenon,
- the positioning of their municipality regarding to this concept,
- the vision and strategy of their municipality in this area,
- the implementation and the monitoring of their projects.
The results presented in this barometer confirm it: Walloon cities are well into the race!Want to know more? Consult the report and the infographics now!
Some key lessons from the survey
The largest cities at the halfway point
It would seem that the process is already well under way, since the 9 largest municipalities in Wallonia consider themselves to be halfway through the process leading to the Smart City, while, on average, the Walloon municipalities place their progress at 3.67 on a scale of 1 to 10. Promising results for Wallonia! However, the municipalities admit that they are facing many obstacles, including: the difficulty of mobilising budgets (50%), the lack of expertise within their administration (38%) and a complex stakeholder dynamic to be established (31%).
Prioritised strategies
For their strategy, Walloon municipalities are focusing on two energy-related subjects: LED and intelligent lighting (59%) and energy optimisation (52%). Next, priority is given to governance and citizen participation (50%), digitalisation and IT (41%) and in fifth position, mobility (40%).
Day-to-day project management
In terms of day-to-day management of the dynamic, 26% of the Walloon municipalities surveyed stated that they had no person in charge of Smart City projects within their administration. However, the 9 largest Walloon cities confirm that, in their municipality, at least one person is in charge of Smart City projects.
On this subject, Carina Basile, Operational Director at the Smart City Institute and former Smart City Manager, stresses "that a real support from elected politicians and management within the administration is essential and enables the approach but, beyond this support, it is necessary to provide the human resources that will allow the concrete implementation of the projects".
Want to know more ?
Discover the detailed results in our report and/or the infographics!
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The barometersavailable
