Sabadell Smart City as a Catalyst for Building the City of the Future

Background Information

•Agenda 21 +10 (2011-2020)

•Municipal Strategy for Climate Change Mitigation in Sabadell (2008-2012)

•Urban Mobility Plan 2009-2014

•Tax Ordinance 2.3; discount for sustainable vehicles (Article 2n. 2)

•Municipal ordinance regulating the construction of buildings (OMRE), prescribing electrical pre-installation to facilitate electric vehicles recharge points deployment at indoor parking areas as of four vehicles.

•Plan to use water outside the water distribution network 2014-2024 (reclaimed water).

Goals of the Initiative

•Providing more and better information to citizens, particularly by the means of smartphone applications

•Cutting economic expenditure on public services, while improving or at least keeping their quality

•Improving efficiency and quality of public services, by using new ICTs

•Supporting the “new economy” with high added-value based on innovation, through the implementation of several focused measures

•Contributing to environmental sustainability particularly in respect of energy systems, so that the city of Sabadell moves towards a CO2 low emissions future as envisaged by the “Europe 2020 Strategy” for smart and inclusive growth

•Consolidating Sabadell as a model for smart cities

Innovation for the Initiative

It is revolutionary for several reasons:

•Changes are not cumulative but come all at the same time due to the cross-cutting nature of the program, intending to integrate all of the city’s public services management into one single platform.

•The program implies a change of working culture at the City Council, emphasizing the need for cooperation and information sharing (open data) instead of separate management at each City Council division.

•The development of new technologies, particularly related to the “Internet of Things” is very fast, and therefore the city has to react at the same speed, integrating them just as they come out, as waiting too long could result in these technologies being obsolete.

•There are several challenges related to this project:

a)Financing: Finding funds to finance all these simultaneous actions is a challenge and requires the participation of public and private institutions in an unprecedented coordinated effort for resources mobilization.

b)Technology selection: There are many technological developments, but not all of them might serve the goals of the project. Moreover, some of these technologies might not have been broadly implemented anywhere else. Therefore, as sometimes it is not possible to verify real outcomes in other cities arising from these technologies, cost-benefit analysis prior to implementation becomes more complex.

c)Public awareness: The rationale behind the program is to improve the quality for people in the city, but some citizens might say priority should be given to social aids not to technological innovations, particularly in the current context of economic uncertainty. Therefore, it is a challenge to appropriately communicate this program, so that people are convinced that technologies can also contribute to social objectives, as they decrease the cost of public services while improving their quality. Moreover, it is necessary to communicate that, as a consequence of this project; new opportunities for jobs creation in the city will arise, particularly related to the technological industry, as Sabadell will become a reference among European smart cities.

Outcomes and Assessments

The expected outcome is to achieve six specific goals encompassing all areas of urban management, through the implementation of a wide range of actions. The scale of change is local and regional, as far as Sabadell is the capital of Vallès Occidental county and a major economic pool in the Barcelona metropolitan area. This implies that improvements in mobility or economic competitiveness will also benefit Sabadell’s neighboring areas. Moreover, the “Sabadell smart city” model is expected to have a global influence in terms of other cities building upon the example of Sabadell.