As cities wield increasing economic, political and technological power, they are gaining greater control over the quality of services they provide to their people and businesses. Instrumented and interconnected core systems are providing new levels of intelligence that allow for synergistic interaction and operation.

Technological advances allow cities to be “instrumented,” facilitating the collection of more data points than ever before, which enables cities to measure and influence more aspects of their operations. Cities are increasingly “interconnected,” allowing the free flow of information from one discrete system to another, which increases the efficiency of the overall infrastructure.

Despite this new empowerment, cities are struggling with a wide range of challenges and threats to sustainability in their citizen and business systems, as well as in such vital infrastructures as transport, water, energy and communications.