Smart city indicator tools have become essential for governments around the world to measure the effectiveness and competitiveness of their smart city initiatives. These tools range from globally recognized frameworks, such as the IMD Smart City Index, to indicators tailored to national and cultural contexts, such as Japan's SCI-Japan Liveable Well-Being City Index or the Thailand Smart City Competitiveness Index by the Digital Economy Promotion Agency (DEPA). These systems are crucial in supporting policy formulation and guiding strategic initiatives for smart city development.

Taiwan Think Tank MIC's Longstanding Commitment to Smart City Research, Offering Three Valuable Directions  for City Transformation.

Several international organizations and national governments are actively developing or adopting smart city indicators for urban transformation, aiming to improve public service efficiency, promote economic development, and enhance people's quality of life through intelligent processes. This article offers insights into how local governments can leverage indicators such as happiness, urban transformation, and digital readiness to strategize future policy development.

1. Designing Public Opinion-Centered Indicators Tailored to Local Core Issues to Quantify Citizens' Voices

Incorporating public opinion is critical for the success of smart city initiatives. Incorporating public opinion is essential to the success of smart city initiatives. Observing international trends, we see that many assessments begin with issues closely tied to citizens' daily lives to evaluate the effectiveness of policies aimed at these concerns. The number and type of focus areas can vary. 

MIC suggests that when governments design local evaluation indicators, they could consider not only referencing IMD standards but also taking into account the city’s smart development vision and core initiatives. By aligning local issues with recent international smart city trends, governments can create tailored indicators that effectively measure project outcomes while ensuring that the project’s goals address local needs and connect with global benchmarks.

For instance, Taiwan’s smart city initiatives emphasize innovative trials in areas such as transportation, healthcare, governance, and agriculture. In response to the global focus on healthy aging, Taiwan has identified senior care and aging issues as key concerns. A priority for Taiwanese citizens is ensuring accessible mobility for seniors, enabling them to travel independently from home to their destination. This can be addressed through demand-based public transport systems, which support active, healthy lifestyles for the elderly.

Therefore, an indicator could be designed as “Online Reservation Shuttle Services to Facilitate Daily Shopping and Medical Visits,” allowing citizens to rate their satisfaction. Such indicators could also serve as one of the KPIs for evaluating the program's success. 

2. Benchmarking High-Performing and Similar Cities for Smart Service Insights

Due to varying levels of digital readiness among cities, the IMD classifies global cities into four groups based on their development stage, allowing for comparisons within each group.

MIC observes that development disparities exist not only between international cities but also among domestic cities facing similar challenges. Government agencies can adopt the IMD concept of grouping cities based on development stages to establish tailored digital transformation plans for each group. For grouping methods, cities could be classified not only according to IMD and UN standards but also based on their financial capacity.

As smart city initiatives extend beyond major cities, smaller towns often encounter financial limitations in implementing smart services. To address this, the central government can set varying financial burden levels as a reference for city classification. This classification is not meant to  rank cities in terms of their superiority or inferiority but to acknowledge financial capacity as a prerequisite for deploying smart services.

With financial-based groupings in place, cities within the same category can share successful smart service practices and adopt similar business models. This facilitates regional ecosystems for smart services and creates networks for knowledge sharing. High-performing smart services in these cities can even become showcase topics for international exchanges.

3. Using the Push and Pull Factors of Smart Services as Indicators for Decision-Making

In addition to indicators focused on public welfare issues, international standards also consider public attitudes toward new technologies, such as privacy concerns and key areas of interest like traffic congestion and environmental sustainability. 

MIC suggests that these types of indicators can reflect the potential drivers and barriers in implementing smart services. Conducting surveys to understand public sentiment early on and investing in initial communication efforts can help governments avoid the need to adjust strategies after trials, minimizing losses and potentially revealing new service directions inspired by citizen feedback.

Furthermore, governments might use local workshops to gather insights into the unique drivers and barriers in each area, which can inform the design of localized indicators. Implementing monitoring mechanisms to track annual changes in these indicators will also allow governments to gauge the effectiveness of public engagement.

Choosing Smart City Indicators Based on Core City Goals and Vision

In selecting smart city indicators, local governments should first define the core values they aim to achieve, such as sustainability, inclusiveness, and economic growth. Based on the city’s vision and goals, they can either adopt existing international indicators or develop customized metrics aligned with the nation’s or city’s specific cultural and societal context. This approach ensures that smart city initiatives are not only more effective but also more relevant to the unique needs and aspirations of the community.