A Smart City Alliance serves to promote cooperation and the exchange of knowledge in the field of smart cities. The main objectives of this exchange are to improve policy efficiency, reduce waste, maximize social inclusion and improve social and economic quality through the use of technology. A Smart City Alliance helps:

• Designing smart cities for success
• Creating an intelligent future
• Platform for building and maintaining a network

Smart City means sustainable and efficient coexistence in a city that is designed as a strategic and ongoing process for sustainability and resource conservation. The smart city definition is an Internet of Things with intelligent services and offerings in a city. It fits in well with the ever-increasing networking and use of modern technologies that are omnipresent in our urban areas. Smart cities are used for living and working. The smart city concept takes account of globalization and constantly growing population figures. It meets the increasing demand for innovative, efficient and networked systems for mobility, energy, environmental protection and communication. The Smart City goals are to make daily life easier for people living in the city through intelligent infrastructure and to improve their quality of life. This is achieved through wireless and super-fast radio networks, smart end devices and innovative applications. Smart City projects can improve the relationship between citizens, business and administration.

In Switzerland, SwissEnergy is the Federal Council's program to promote energy efficiency and renewable energy. The Smart City Switzerland program supports cities and municipalities in the planning and implementation of smart initiatives. It includes advice, networking opportunities, information events and funding. Examples of smart cities in Switzerland include Lucerne, which has developed guidelines for sustainable procurement. Or Winterthur, which wants its own vehicle fleet to be 100% electric. Basel is another smart city in Switzerland with its sustainable new building for the Office for the Environment and Energy (AUE). Other projects worth mentioning include the waste disposal center in Zug, the promotion of private charging stations in central Schwyz and part of the municipal communication on social media in Köniz. There are certainly numerous other smart city projects that have already been or are still being implemented in Switzerland.

The Smart City Hub Switzerland aims to promote smart ideas at a national level. The association for the Digital Switzerland Strategy, founded in 2018, helps to network the players. It enables the processing of topics in the context of Smart City with nationwide relevance and complements the various regional groupings (e.g. Smart Region Basel, Smart Capital Region). Its main task is also to support members in private and public projects.

The Smart City Index records the annual level of digitalization of cities in a country. The digital ranking mostly takes large cities into account. The results can then be called up individually for each city. There is also a Smart City Ranking Index worldwide. In Germany, the ranking is called the Smart City Index IMD, as it is carried out by the Institute for Management Development. Here, smart cities are classified on the basis of economic and technological data on the one hand and the perception of citizens on the other. In Switzerland, the Swiss Smart City Survey is compiled by the ZHAW. According to the Swiss Smart City Index 2021, Swiss cities scored just 31 out of 100 points. This means that there is still great potential for development in Switzerland.

As a smart city has diverse, independent and yet interconnected subject areas that must be taken into account during project planning, the Smart City Wheel was created as an important basis. In this wheel, four important measures are assigned to each of the target groups of economy, life, mobility, people, administration and environment. Defined measures include, for example

• Smart working and workspaces
• Smart home
• Clean, shared and autonomous mobility
• Inclusive and sustainable society
• Digital service and cooperative government
• Urban planning
• Resource management

There are various smart city examples with very different measures. In Amsterdam, for example, the focus is on the energy sector and also on reducing CO2 emissions. In other smart city examples, there are also measures relating to mobility. Helsinki is considered the city with the most developed district heating networks. In Luxembourg, all newly constructed buildings must meet a passive house standard as well as a low-energy house standard. The potentials of smart cities are:

• New information channels for residents
• New forms of decision-making
• Energy and resource efficiency is increased
• emissions are reduced through new business models for the provision, linking and joint management of technical infrastructures
• Citizens have a great deal of freedom of choice when it comes to urban infrastructure
• ecological and climatic relationships can be better observed and recorded
• Economic area in a smart city becomes more attractive

A Smart City Lab is a creative workspace for employees - e.g. from administrations. Employees from different departments and outsiders come together there. In this way, specific issues in smart cities can be tackled and solved together. The lab is a place of inspiration where things are tackled together. Innovation methods and creative approaches can be shared. The local smart city team is open to all related topics and innovative approaches as well as smart solutions for smart cities.