What the “smart city” teaches cities

If the smart city model seems to have gone out of fashion today, many cities have adopted it since the 1990s and have since collected data – for example through sensors installed on their territory – which can be used to improve their public policies. At least if they are treated well. “The data must be inserted into databases and networked to be cross-referenced with others in order to really enrich the knowledge of a subject, notes Christine Hennion, deputy mayor of Courbevoie (Hauts-de-Seine), co-author of a report on the use of data by communities. There is also a lot of trust work to be done with citizens to assure them that this information is truly anonymized. »

The city of Nice is known for its network of sensors and cameras, more than 4,300 in total. Tools that allow it to collect data on water consumption, energy, waste treatment, transport, etc. “But today, we work in silos, recognizes Véronique Borré, deputy general director of the city. We have a certain number of observatories, but that only allows us to have a vision theme by theme. » An observation which has led the community to equip itself, by 2025, with a single center where all the data will converge. “This will allow us to have a transversal vision.”

Marseille itself began to work in silos. But, since 2020, the new municipality has “a very strong policy of restructuring public action through data”, assures Christophe Hugon, municipal councilor responsible for open data, responsible digital and digital transition. And today she is looking to cross-reference her data. It began by completely remodeling the digital tool set up by the previous team for security in the city to make it a system, no longer security, but for managing events in public spaces, for which it cross-references data. on public spaces and on requests to hold shows, fairs or others. This allows it to centralize events of all types and to have advance management of its public space. This platform where data is cross-referenced,
M-pulse.marseille.fris open to the general public who can learn about events and works in public spaces.

Likewise, keen to be a greener city, Marseille cross-references data on its tree-lined areas, which it collects via satellite images, but also from agents who regularly monitor the trees and who transcribe on a tablet what they observe and measure. But beyond this work ” thematic “Marseille strives to collect all the data on this or that subject to cross-reference them either in dashboards or in decision-making tools. “The idea is to interweave them when it’s relevant. Decompartmentalization increases the quality of data and allows us to have a more global vision”underlines Christophe Hugon.

Data Challenge

As soon as it took a step towards the smart city and inaugurated, in April 2019, the application OnDijon, Dijon Métropole has the same control center where data from all urban services as well as those from the metropolis’s 300 video surveillance cameras and sensors installed on traffic lights, electrical terminals and urban lighting. And in 2020, it decided to rely on this data to imagine the services of the city of tomorrow. “As long as it only applied to public equipment and lighting, the OnDijon project remained invisible, difficult to understand. Today, notes Denis Hameau, delegated councilor of the metropolis in charge of the OnDijon project, citizens better understand what it brings: simplifying their daily lives, facilitating and improving the quality of life in the city through the deployment of new services adapted to their needs. »

To do this, it has already organized three Data Challenges, an approach which invites start-ups to participate, with agents of the metropolis, in the improvement of public services, thanks to the data made available to them, and to reflect, test and validate solutions that will be deployed across the metropolis. If the first was, above all, a learning ground, the second, centered on the cleanliness and maintenance of public facilities, was more fruitful: relying on the data collected by the control center, but also reports transmitted by residents with the OnDijon citizen application – co-constructed in 2021 with citizens and today downloaded by 16,000 of them already – one of the chosen start-ups has identified ten areas where the state of the roads was dangerous, leading the city to reprioritize its work. Another worked on waste collection and proposed optimizing it, through automated planning and better organization of collection rounds.

Also, wishing to better control the evolution of its tree heritage in order to respond to environmental challenges, Dijon Métropole launched a third Data Challenge in February 2023 on the greening of the city, but also citizen inclusion. This social action component aims to identify people who do not access their rights, so that social services can explain to them what they can benefit from.

Aggregator Platform

Nantes Métropole, which adopted a data charter in 2019 laying the foundations for ethical and responsible data governance, is determined to place health at the heart of its public action. “The smart city is just a means for us. Our primary objective is a sustainable city, that is to say a city which contributes to the physical, social and psychological well-being of its inhabitants, underlines Francky Trichet, vice-president of Nantes Métropole, delegate for innovation and digital. To do this, we need to cross-reference data to objectify the state of well-being in the city. Especially since overall health is protean: it affects noise pollution, air pollution, heat peaks, the quality of water, food, physical and mental health, the relationship with culture, At the sports… “

The metropolis has thus embarked on a Synopse project (Digital population health and environmental observation system), which aims to create a digital platform for the aggregation, exchange and cross-referencing of data. A partnership, this tool is carried, beyond Nantes Métropole, by six actors committed to observing and acting in the service of territorial quality of life and well-being. The platform will eventually integrate other public and private partners. “Regardless of the owner, as long as their data provides an understanding of the pulse of the city, we want partners to make it accessible. We do not need to have ownership of them, just to have a right of access to aggregate and cross-reference them,” explains Francky Trichet.

The objective is to improve and enrich all urban policies, particularly on food insecurity, access to green spaces, the fight against pollution, nuisances having an impact on health, etc. And to offer services to help citizens to be actors in their health, with, for example, the creation of urban routes favorable to health, or the provision of daily information on all establishments contributing to health. “ Ultimately, notes Francky Trichet, this platform, which will see the light of day in 2024, will be protean: certain aspects will only be accessible to professionals and others will be open to all citizens. The idea is that residents can check the state of the environment in their city and neighborhood on a daily basis. »