Analyzing smart city best practices: a case study of Taipei City

SINGAPORE, Oct 26^th, 2017 – The traditional representations and bureaucratic-laden strategic operations of most city governments is rapidly fading. This is especially so for the Taipei City government.

The Taipei City government established the “Taipei Smart City Project Management Office (TPMO)” in FY2016 to realize the Smart Taipei vision, and solve city sustainability and urban challenges. Notably, the city government is seeking to spur socioeconomic growth with key urban improvement initiatives such as encouraging greater use of the city's efficient public transport system, instilling values of environmental responsibility and to enticing residents' livability contentment.

"Taipei has devoted itself toward rapid development and implement of Smart City initiatives. Many of these reforms were carried out to ensure the city remains a first-world economic powerhouse that continually attracts the best manpower talents and foreign direct investments," shares Gerald Wang, Head, Government and Education Insights, Asia Pacific.

"In this study, Smart City Profile-Taipei City , IDC sought to capture the city government's innovative reforms to create a unique digital DNA centered on boosting international trade and transforming next-generation domestic industries, thereby creating a high quality 'live, learn, work and play" environment for all Taipei residents,” Wang adds.

The TPMO recently established the LoRa Taipei IoT Experimental Platform and the Taipei IoT Innovation Lab. The former is a virtual network platform created jointly by Taipei City Government's Department of Information Technology (DOIT), TPMO, and Gemtek, a communications equipment company. Innovation teams can use this free platform to research and develop long-range (LoRa) technology for Smart City solutions. A total of 80 teams have applied to join the project since its establishment. The innovation lab was jointly set up by Dell, Gemtek, Asia Pacific Telecom, and Sigfox.

In 2015, the city won the Public Works category in the IDC Smart City Asia/Pacific Awards (SCAPA) with its Smart Critical Infrastructures' Poles System project. The following year, it was awarded the winner for the Transportation category with its Connected Transport Systems initiative- all testimonies of the city's excellence in deploying successful government services for long-term city livability and sustainability. IDC Government Insights believes it is in the city government's proven ability play an effective role in advancing the 'e' ecosystem of technology, government, business and society that enables it to be a smart and swift architect of sustained eGovernment transformations.

"Taipei City government is to be commended on its work to foster cross-functional collaborations and to break down operational silos across departments. Setting up a Smart City Project Management Office is a best practice that other cities can follow, and which has, for example, helped to implement a unified eService platform as well as smart and connected initiatives in transport and energy," concludes Ruthbea Yesner Clarke, Global Director for IDC Government Insights and Smart Cities Strategies Practice.