Juniper Research conducts regular studies on the progress of smart cities. One produced for Intel and O2 in March calculated the human hours saved by people as a result of various smart city initiatives.

The study weighed the value of impacts on mobility, like the reduction in wasted time stuck in traffic per person as a result of the implementation of intelligent traffic systems (19.5 hours); reduced waits for administrative service as a result of open data exchange between agencies (31 hours); time saved with cashless payments (1.2 hours); and time saved thanks to safer roads (7.8 hours). The study calculated the total time given back to citizens at 15 days per year. Similar calculations were made in the areas of health, safety and productivity.

Taken from an infrastructure-engineering point of view, most of the gains are built upon the creation of a 3D geospatial database of physical assets, which the government of Singapore has focused on since it embarked on its Smart Nation initiative in 2014.
 

Click to view larger version

Related Article: Smart Cities Take Many Forms