10. Barcelona - The city is a pioneer in smart city and low-carbon solutions. 9. Hong Kong - The city has also been a leader in the use and adoption of smart cards, which are already used by millions of residents for services like public transit, library access, building access, shopping, and car parks. 8. Copenhagen - The city has committed to carbon neutrality by 2025 and 40% of its citizens regularly commute via bicycle. 7. Berlin - Berlin is testing out vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technologies in the hopes of creating a virtual power plant from electric vehicles. 6. Tokyo - The city will create a smart town in the suburbs in partnership with major industry. The eco-burb will contain homes that integrate solar panels, storage ba tteries, and energy efficient appliances all connected to a smart grid. 5. London - also scored relatively high across the board. London has been well-recognized for some of its sustainability innovations (i.e. congestion tax) and its robust transit system. 4. New York - New York scored higher than most other cities in the ranking in all of the categories except of quality of life, where it ranked a poor 47th. It has teamed with innovator IBM to help the city prevent fires and protect first responders as well as identify questionable tax refund claims--a move that is expected to save the city about $100 million over a five-year period. 3. Paris - Paris already has a highly successful bike sharing program, Velib, and just last month, its mayor launched a similar model for small EVs called Autolib. 2. Toronto - smartest city in NA, scored well across the board, it is an active member of the Clinton 40 (C40) megacities, which seek to transition to the low-carbon economy. The private sector is getting in on the action too, setting up a Smart Commute Toronto initiative to increase the city's transit efficiency. 1. The smartest city in the world is Vienna - Vienna was the only city that ranked in the top 10 in every category. It is establishing bold smart-city targets and tracking their progress to reach these goals with programs like Smart Energy Vision 2050, Roadmap 2020, and Action Plan 2012-2015. A smart city is defined as using information and communication technologies to be more intelligent and efficient in the use of resources, resulting in cost and energy savings, improved service delivery and quality of life, and reduced environmental footprint--all supporting innovation and the low-carbon economy. The rankings were determined by the cities scores on 4 global categories: Innovation, Green ranking, Quality of life and digital city.

• published: 22 Oct 2014
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