Are new technologies making cities smarter?

Xavier Boymond/VINCI Energies

This is the question that French radio station France Inter has been seeking to answer this summer in its C’est pour aujourd’hui ou pour demain programme. Lydia Babaci-Victor, development and innovation director at VINCI Energies, who was interviewed on the programme believes that: “All infrastructures produce data. The underground, buses, cars themselves, street lighting, traffic lights, and so on. We will use this data, and digital transformation, to identify patterns as they emerge and to anticipate how they will change. So what this means is operating the various systems more effectively to achieve a high quality public service. Why does data also represent a social issue? Because data will make it possible to include citizens in decisions that will be made and because they will be able to communicate their expectations much more easily thanks to open data platforms for example.”