It may be premature to speak of a tipping point, but the long, long gestation period for the smart city does appear to be entering a new phase of commitment and engagement from local, national and international bodies. But the maturing technologies and emerging business models in this domain intersect with a global climate of austerity for the public sector, which naturally includes municipalities. In order to get the most out of their suppliers, cities need to set strict controls and policy frameworks for their suppliers, most importantly to remove the risk of silos and fragmentation.
This Research Note examines the development of standards in the Smart Cities domain, looking at the efforts of global standards development organisations such as the ISO to develop top-down semantic framework standards, and also the activities of industry consortia aimed at creating bottom-up lower-level standards for interoperability.