Melbourne named world's tenth-smartest city

Melbourne has been named the world's tenth-smartest city, narrowly beating out Sydney in a global ranking from smart parking app developer EasyPark.

A study conducted by the company ranked 500 cities in terms of 19 factors aiming to define what makes a city smart, such as digitalisation, high-speed internet and high smartphone penetration.

Melbourne achieved an overall score of 7.51 out of 10, compared to an 8.24 for first-placed Copenhagen in Denmark.

Melbourne had the highest 4G penetration of cities on the list, with Sydney and Perth rounding out the global top three.

Melbourne also achieved the highest score among the top 20 cities in terms of urban planning (9.24), but the lowest in terms of the city's business ecosystem (6.02) and was equal second last with Sydney — ahead of only Tel Aviv in Israel — in terms of clean energy.

Sydney, meanwhile, took 12th place in the overall rankings with a score of 7.43, beating Melbourne in terms of the business ecosystem (6.63) and expert perception (8.2 compared to 7.3), but losing out in terms of internet speed (7.84 compared to 7.58) and smart parking (7.23 compared to 7.97).

The research also found that Adelaide ranks ahead of Melbourne and behind only Singapore in terms of citizen participation.

EasyPark Chief Business Development Officer Mauritz Börjeson said the rankings can be considered a measure of how effective individual cities are at utilising big data.

“Big data has changed the face of the world as we know it, because it allows us to create better solutions to real-world problems. Without better solutions, global urbanisation would lead to problems such as traffic congestion, housing shortages and pollution — by using big data, we can help tackle these important global issues,” he said.

“Every city in this index deserves to be applauded for their efforts, and while the results clearly indicate those cities which are leaps and bounds ahead, it also brings to attention the admirable efforts of many cities looking forward towards a smart future.”

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/sdecoret

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