Map of smart cities in Romania. Alba-Iulia, Cluj and Iasi lead the list of projects

Looking at the first 10 smart cities in the country, we notice that the first two places are unchanged from last year, with Alba Iulia and Cluj-Napoca in the first two positions. Iași takes third place, followed by Bucharest – but only at the level of the central town hall because combined with the six distinct sectors, the Capital leads the ranking, Bucharest Sector 4 and Arad.

We also note that the number of people in town halls dedicated to Smart City projects and infrastructure is increasing. We believe that we will move to the next stage of Smart City development only when in Romania the municipalities will have at least one person dedicated to Smart City projects and when we will have new jobs, such as Data Manager, Data Analyst, Traffic Officer or Infrastructure Manager Smart City in the organizational chart.

I noticed beyond the contagious effect of the trend called Smart City and the competition between cities, a factor called NEED. The need for digitalization in the last year has led the county authorities to take measures for change, especially since some people from the administration – mayors and councilors have moved to the county administrations.

After Cluj and Ilfov, which initiated county digitization efforts, other counties followed with 29 projects from 15 counties.

As examples we have the following counties:

• Cluj proposed, in September 2020, to become the first smart county by 2025, through a project with a total value of 2.8 million lei without VAT
• Bacău County proposed, starting in June 2020, to implement a project with European funds called “Bacău Smart County” in 30 months, with a total project value of 3,369,338 lei
• In Alba Iulia, 45 companies had tested Smart City solutions and we identified 123 companies that provide Smart City solutions in the responses received from the town halls of which the first three companies are Telekom Romania with 26 projects, the very active Cluj IT Cluster with 21 projects and Electrogup, currently part of the e-Infra group that also owns Direct One and NETCITY Telecom and shows great ambitions through the team dedicated to Smart City projects with 17 implemented projects.

Another idea worth noting is the trend of alliances between cities – such as the Western Alliance, between Cluj-Napoca, Oradea, Timișoara and Arad, or between several localities – the Rodnei area, or the metropolitan areas that still have such great potential of sustainable development.

An interesting thing to watch is the expansion of digitization at the county level, as well as the projects that will materialize in the next period.