URBAN DATA PLATFORMS FOR RESILIENT CITIES

Digitalisation in cities is a global trend. In Germany, too, municipalities are increasingly collecting data on various topics and making it available on urban data platforms. Generally speaking, these platforms are digital solutions that enable the collection and sharing of information from various sectors of a city.

However, not all data platforms are the same. Rather, there are very different designs for these digital solutions, which in turn have a decisive influence on their usefulness. As part of a joint study with the LOEWE Centre emergenCITY, we have classified a total of four platform variants currently in use in German cities: geoportals, dashboards, open data repositories, and apps.

The basis for the analysis was our Haselhorst Smart City Ranking 2022, which examined more than 400 German cities, supplemented by the 65 federally funded Smart Cities model projects. In total, we identified 144 data platforms in 96 cities and one region: 113 in operation, 10 in implementation, and 21 in planning. Geoportals dominate with a share of 71 per cent, while dashboards and open data repositories each account for 12 per cent and apps for less than 6 per cent.

In addition, the analysis categorises the platforms according to the type of user interface, the availability of real-time data, and data categories. These categories include, for example, the distinction between data that is directly and indirectly relevant to crises. Data directly relevant to crises includes, for instance, data showing traffic volume and traffic flow in real time. Indirectly crisis-relevant data, on the other hand, may include information on the number of electric vehicle charging points.

THE TECHNOLOGIES USED MUST THEMSELVES BE RESILIENT

When it comes to the potential of such data platforms for the sustainable and resilient development of cities, the combination of real-time and crisis-relevant data plays a particularly crucial role. This is because cities are only able to respond flexibly to crises if the information is actually up to date. An example: if a city has a dashboard displaying up-to-date traffic data, it can respond at an early stage to traffic disruptions or accidents and implement effective crisis management.

Furthermore, one key point must not be overlooked when developing urban data platforms: a platform only promotes a city’s resilience if the technologies used are themselves resilient. After all, a system that is not itself designed to be robust and flexible will otherwise lose its original function in the event of a crisis and cannot contribute to a city’s resilience.

In light of this, we have outlined the key considerations that cities should prioritise when establishing urban data platforms in our practice dossier.

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