PwC Presents the City Readiness Index on the Capacity of Leading Global Cities to Adopt the Technologies of the Future

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PwC Russia has analysed the readiness of the world's largest cities to respond to disruptive innovations and to adopt technology-driven solutions across a variety of social sectors, including healthcare, education, security, tourism and culture, transportation, the economy, utilities, urban development and citizen engagement. City readiness was assessed across several parameters: technology readiness (presence of basic infrastructure); the strategies and regulations that support the adoption and use of new infrastructure; the availability of finished prototypes; and the social readiness of citizens to use new technologies.  

The top five surveyed cities were ranked according to their overall social and technological readiness in the following order: Singapore (62%), London (59%), Shanghai (55%), New York (53%) and Moscow (53%).

Subhash Patil, Partner and the Head of the Government and Public Sector Consulting Services team in western India, PwC in India:

"Cities occupy only 2% of the landmass but house more than 55% of global population, and contribute to 60% of global energy consumption, 70% of waste and 70% emission of green house gases. Clearly, cities need to innovate solutions which will drive human civilisation to a sustainable future - one which meets and exceeds climate change goals established at Paris in 2016. PwC's 'Cities Readiness Index' tells us about what is done right in which global city and gives us benchmarks on core health parameters of a city. I am happy to mention that many countries in the world, including my own country India, are giving due attention to make cities Smarter, Livable, and this report will help us learn about global benchmarks which can be adopted by cities across the world." 

Dirk Ahlborn, CEO of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies:

"We're entering an era where executives and creatives have an unprecedented opportunity to live in the best cities, and those urban centers planning for the future will benefit greatly. PwC's report, "The Future is Coming: Cities Readiness Rating," is comprehensive in scale and rich with insights. I recommend it for anyone interested in the urban landscape of the 21st century". 

The survey showed that less than half the population in the surveyed cities, excluding Shanghai (76%) and Hong Kong (53%), are ready to embrace new technologies in their daily life. London (42%) and Toronto (41%) turned out to be the most conservative.

The leaders in culture and tourism digitalisation projects are Barcelona (78%), Shanghai (78%) and Singapore (72%), as these cities have demonstrated the largest number of relevant cases.

London (72%) is the top performer in autonomous transportation, as it has designed and launched an unmanned transportation strategy and built a regulatory framework for testing.

Singapore (75%) ranks first among for the digital economy, due to its well-balanced development of critical infrastructure. Moreover, Singapore is one the few cities that has not only supported the adoption of adaptive software in schools, but has also invested in the development of adaptive learning technologies.

Moscow (64%) is the leader in providing virtual services for citizen engagement - including those designed to crowdsource ideas and address problems for urban projects. Sydney (58%) follows, as it has offered online voting opportunities on general urban matters and in elections for the last six years.

London (63%) and Singapore (61%) are the most successful examples of virtual cities and outpace the others in terms of using new construction technologies. They have run numerous experiments on modular construction and 3D printing of houses. London (77%) is the leader among cities whose infrastructure is ready for the future followed by Barcelona (74%) and Moscow (76%) due to their data analytics projects. The majority of the surveyed cities have worked together with businesses and residents to design new infrastructure solutions. In New York (67%), a significant portion of the local solutions on predictive analytics has been developed by non-profit organisations and independent groups of researchers.

Notes to Editors: 

• The online survey was carried out among the citizens of ten cities (Barcelona, Hong Kong, London, Moscow, New York, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo and Toronto) in June 2017 based on a random sample. The number of respondents was at least 100 people in each city. The sample size totalled 1,500 respondents.
• The survey included 24 questions (2-3 questions per section). Respondents had to select one of two suggested responses, where one option implied the use of advanced/future technologies in various dimensions, while the second option involved traditional practices, approaches and solutions. The share of respondents selecting each option was calculated for each question, then the averages were derived by section and city.
• The survey findings are available at: http://www.pwc.ru/ru/assets/the-future-is-coming-eng.pdf

SOURCE Moscow Urban Forum