SmartHK Urban Planning Strategies for Developing Hong Kong as a Smart City Final Report Edison TING, Jessie LAU, Yi ZHU, Jenny NGAN, Jiuzhen LI, Felix KU, Jeff LEUNG, Clarice HO Contents List of Figures & Tables ii Abbreviation iv Executive Summary vii Section I Introduction Chapter 1 – Time for Review 1 Chapter 2 – Study Goal and Approach 11 Section II Smart City Development in Hong Kong Chapter 3 – Policy Review 17 Chapter 4 – Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and 26 Challenges Section III International Review Chapter 5 – Review of International Experiences 40 Chapter 6 – Relevance of International Experiences 56 Section IV Planning Strategy and Next Steps Chapter 7 – Vision and Strategies 62 Chapter 8 – Initiatives and Policies 64 Chapter 9 – Operating Mechanism 74 Chapter 10 – Policy Implications 80 Section V Conclusion 90 Annexes Annex I Interview Bibliogrophy 91 Annex II Interview Summary 93 Annex III Work Programme 111 Annex IV Staff Organization 112 References 113 i List of Figures Figure 1.1 The Smart City Wheel Figure 2.1 Study Process Flow Chart Figure 4.1 ICT Price Basket and Sub-basket Ranking 2015 Figure 4.2 Networked Readiness Index Hong Kong Figure 4.3 Business R&D Spending on Percentage of Total R&D Spending Figure 4.4 R&D Spending by Countries with Similarly Liberal Economic System Figure 4.5 Distribution of Information Technology (IT) Employees by Industry Grouping 2014 Figure 4.6 Digital Natives, 2012 Figure 4.7 SWOT Analysis Figure 5.1 Three Key Smart City Development Themes in iN2015 Figure 5.2 Four strategic thrusts for Smart City Development in iN2015 Figure 5.3 Objectives of Smart Barcelona Figure 5.4 Three axis of Barcelona Smart City Development Figure 5.5 Smart Work Centre at Jurong Regional Library, Singapore Figure 5.6 Tele-rehabilitation in Singapore Figure 5.7 Orthogonal Bus Network Designed by BCNecologia to Improve Efficiency of Bus Network Figure 5.8 HDB Greenprint Project in Singapore ii List of Tables Table 2.1 Study Process Table 3.1 Economic Initiatives Table 3.2 Social Initiatives Table 3.3 Environmental Initiatives Table 3.4 Government Initiatives Table 3.5 Regional Initiatives Table 4.1 Bureaux and Departments Involving in Smart City Development Table 9.1 Contents in Smart City Standards iii iv v vi Executive Summary Technology is now everywhere - in every sector, in every organization and in every household. While this issue might once be concerned only by a few computer geeks, technology is now pertinent to policy makers across the world for its potential benefits to city management. Smart City, a concept first emerging in the early 2000s, is said to be a response to address the wicked urban problems brought about by rapid urbanization. By 2017, it is estimated that at least 20 of the world’s largest countries will have developed national- level Smart City policies (URENIO, 2015). While cities around the globe are enthusiastically experimenting with smart technologies and their application in city management, from electronic bill payment and remote working to citywide smart traffic management and waste collection, a close scrutiny of the concept reveals its inherent complexity. Indeed, at present there is still no general consensus on what is meant by a Smart City. Also, it is doubtful if the concept of Smart City is as promising as it seems to be. Smart City is often criticized for neglecting actual needs of people and orienting urban development goal largely towards the application and development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Based on our in-depth literature review, our team believes “people”, instead of “technology” should be the essence of Smart City and that Smart City should be a means to achieve the ends instead of being an end itself. The end of Smart City should be to realize sustainability by improving quality of life, reducing environmental footprint and supporting a talent-based economy. It is also important for policy makers to acknowledge and address the pitfalls of the concept as several obstacles may arise in the midst of smart policy implementation, such as privacy breach and social polarization. Many pioneering countries such as Singapore and Spain are using smart technology to create more opportunities as well as greater economic and social values to the society, and others are actively exploring how they can do the same if they aspire to compete for the accolade of world-class Smart City. To maintain Hong Kong’s position as Asia’s World City in the light of mounting global competition and to capitalize on the potential benefits of ICT in enhancing city management and quality of life, Hong Kong shall not be vii passively responding to global trends and urban challenges but should actively and boldly shape a smart future by planning ahead. To transform Hong Kong into a world-class Smart City, there is a need to be forward-looking - to foresee the future trends and issues that will affect Hong Kong and see how Smart technologies can be a useful tool to tackle those issues. The five most pressing issues for Hong Kong were identified and they include 1) Economic transformation towards an innovative and sharing economy, 2) Rising expectation on quality of life, 3) Greater emphasis on environmental stewardship, 4) Higher efficiency and transparency in governance and 5) Increasing collaboration with mainland China. Based on these five future trends and key issues of Hong Kong, the study goal of this project is to develop a Smart City planning vision and offer development strategies which revolve around these five issues for input into HK2030+ for Hong Kong to plan ahead for the vision of Smart City. To chart a road for Hong Kong to develop into a Smart city, it is crucial to have an overview of its current Smart City development in terms of policy matters and technological development. Based on our comprehensive baseline study on current ICT infrastructure and government strategies and policies, it is concluded that Hong Kong has a strong ICT hardware in terms of quality and affordable ICT services and a sound business environment. All these have laid a strong foundation for Hong Kong to transform into a Smart City. As for software, strategies, policies and measures have been formulated for the sake of developing and applying technology citywide. For instance, in the 2015 Policy Address, Kowloon East was announced as a pilot testing area for exploring opportunities brought about by Smart technologies in urban management. Nevertheless, a thorough analysis on the software aspect shows that there are several roadblocks Hong Kong shall overcome in order to take a great leap forward to become a world-class Smart City. Examples of barriers include an absence of comprehensive long-term vision for Smart City development, insufficient data transparency and availability as well as inflexibility in regulatory regime. After understanding the existing capacity and the gap for Hong Kong to become a world-class Smart City, we go beyond the local context by examining well- viii known international practices of two pioneers - Singapore and Barcelona, as well as our major socio-economic partner, The Pearl River Delta, with a view to incorporating applicable elements into the final strategic plan and to identify future collaboration opportunities with the mainland. Particularly, overseas experiences regarding the strategic planning, governance structure for Smart City development, supporting system to create a favorable development context as well as key policy applications to the five key issues Hong Kong is facing have been discussed. To supplement our assessment regarding the relevance of overseas experiences, opinions were collected from major stakeholders in the public sector, private sector and the academia through interviews. A review on international experience and interviews with major stakeholders have shed light on strategy formulation in terms of Smart City development foundation and application of Smart City strategies to address the five key issues. For example, international experience showcases that achieving the vision of Smart City requires a pro-business and pro-consumer environment and these are reached through provision of comprehensive supporting services such as a flexible regulatory framework and formulation of policies which address cyber privacy and security as well as digital divide. Based on the aforementioned research and analysis, a long-term vision for planning and developing Hong Kong as a Smart City has been established - to envision Hong Kong to be People first, Technology-based Smart City to boost innovation, city liveability and competitiveness. To realize this bold vision, strategies have been formulated with detailed initiatives and policies devised for each of strategy. Strategies have been categorized under the word “CYBER’- 1) Commit to efficient urban management via data consolidation and dissemination, 2) Yield a digital inclusive and liveable society, 3) Bridge stakeholders for regional collaboration and cooperation, 4) Establish an innovative economy to sustain economic vitality and 5) Recognize environmental issues and endeavour towards a green city. To facilitate the implementation process, various aspects of operating mechanism including governance, regulation and legislation as well as financing, should be taken into consideration by policy makers. For ix example, for financing, policy makers shall acknowledge the importance to expand the ways for funding Smart City projects through Public-Private Partnership