The continued rise of the smart city in Central and Eastern Europe

Undoubtedly smart cites are on the rise all over Europe and beyond. Optimising and integrating virtually all urban operations and services, smart cities have become a key notion of many urban decision-makers and their respective development agendas. In an era where roughly half of the world’s population lives in cities, intelligent urban solutions help not only to manage daily problems and make cities more competitive, but also advance the quality of urban life.

CEE continue smart city focus

Encouraged by scores of success stories in the US, South-East Asia and across Europe, Central and Eastern European cities are gradually harnessing smart city and intelligent mobility approaches towards urban policy-making and planning.

The article details the many inventive approaches that are planned and underway across the region; from Poland’s ‘Virtual Warsaw’ project – of enormous benefit to the visually impaired – and the pioneering Krokow’s multi-modal bus stop that was launched last year, to Vilnius’ deserved recognition as a top 10 best managed municipality and Prague’s Smart City 2014-2020 project. There is much to learn about the creative development of the region’s urban transport systems.

Read more about these case studies in the next issue of Intelligent Transport by signing up here for Issue 6 2016.

Biography

Artur Perchel is managing all of UITP’s operations and activities in Central Eastern European countries and in Israel. Before joining the organisation at the end of 2012 he gained public affairs and corporate experience from London-based research consultancy ComRes and Brussels-based trade association AmCham Belgium. Prior to this, Artur worked as a PhD Researcher at Ghent University.