Artelia Ville et Transport, an independent engineering group and technical expert in urban development, and the Laboratoire Techniques Territoires et Société, a multidisciplinary social sciences laboratory specializing in urban, regional and spatial issues, conducted a research and innovation project aimed at exploring the challenges of the smart city for French engineering between November 15, 2016, and December 5, 2018. Various working sessions brought together a think tank and discussion group with the aim of comparing perspectives on five themes: definitions of the smart city (1), governance of the smart city (2), economic models of the smart city (3), a historical perspective: lessons from electrification in the digital age (4), the materiality of the smart city (5).
Ultimately, exploring these five themes made it possible to shift the focus away from the initial question (relating to the transformation of engineering in the smart city), before returning to it with greater clarity in the conclusion and putting forward several avenues for further exploration. The mission showed that the smart city questions the temporality of projects. In terms of engineering, the construction cycle and the maintenance/management cycle are increasingly intertwined, which raises questions for engineering groups. What timeframe should be adopted? One example studied was that of digital data. What should be done with the digital data needed to carry out projects: return it to the project owners, manage it on their behalf over a longer period of time, or act as a data aggregator in the context of missions similar to public service delegations?
The mission also demonstrated the value of decision-making support tools that can be used by engineering in a context where digital technology generates a certain amount of uncertainty (regarding the purpose of initiatives, their cost, and their social and environmental effects). The cases of scenario planning and modeling, for example, were studied.
Finally, the mission made it possible to compare the organizational difficulties, directly or indirectly related to digital technology, that challenge public administrations with those faced by their partners.
Keywords
City, digital technology, engineering.
Method
Interview with a panel of local authorities on the evolution of public procurement