Dubai’s Smart City Strategy identifies 100 smart initiatives across transport, communications, infrastructure, electricity, economic services, urban planning.
Launched in March 2014, the Smart City Strategy details plans for 1,000 government services to be transformed into “smart services” by 2017.
The Smart City Strategy is based on the three key concepts of communication, integration and cooperation, and was launched as part of Dubai’s Smart Government Initiative. Announcing the initiative in 2013, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, ruler of Dubai said that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) ranked seventh as the world’s best provider of e-government services.
“We have succeeded in promoting a modern concept of a creative e-government, and today we are proceeding towards a government which will provide its services via mobile phone, building on the fact that we have the best communications infrastructure in the world with nearly 14 million mobile phone subscribers, and an average of two mobile phones for each person,” Sheikh Mohammed said.
“Today, we want to take government service centres to clients who can submit their applications through a mobile phone or any other mobile device from any place without waiting … the successful government is the one which goes to clients wherever they are and doesn’t wait for them to come to it,” he added.
A number of key projects were announced as part of the Smart City Strategy, including:
- Development of the worlds largest 5-D control room, which will provide oversight of government projects and service indicators such as roads, weather conditions and emergency situations.
- Plans by the Roads and Transport Authority to develop the smartest transportation system in the world
- Launch of 200 mobile traffic and transport services
- Development of smart traffic and transportation systems, controlled by a unified control centre to monitoring traffic conditions.
- Creation of Dubai Electronic board, that will host all information and data about the city of Dubai in one place. Smart and personal boards will make it easy for individuals to communicate with various agencies and facilities in Dubai.
- Development of smart electrical grid to encourage property owners to use solar energy and sell the surplus to the government.
- The introduction smart meters to rationalise the consumption of electricity and water by residents
- Plans by the Dubai Municipality to transform 450 e-government services into smart services
- Introduction of smart parks and beaches that provide specific information on weather conditions, sea temperatures and safety guidelines.
- Plans by Dubai Police to launch smart phone services to allow people to log police requests by mobile phone.
“We have launched a new project to transform Dubai into a smart city. Education, healthcare and general security will be managed via smart systems.” Sheikh Mohammed announced on his Twitter page. “The project aims to provide all Dubai residents with high speed internet in public places and ‘live’ services and information”.