The Smart Cities Readiness Guide® is the first collaborative and comprehensive framework for a smart city, against which cities can assess their readiness to innovate – identifying a path, taking next steps and measuring their progress. The Guide is a conceptual roadmap to address growth strategies by focusing on universal principles that unite key areas such as energy,  transportation, water and public safety.

Through actionable recommendations, the Guide equips city leaders with objective, vendor-neutral guidance to make confident, informed decisions. It lays out simple and powerful technology “targets” for cities to achieve. A city can then use the roadmap and ideas developed from the Guide to shape its Requests for Proposals (RFPs).

A city's path to the 21st century
The Readiness Guide was prepared with input from best-in-class companies across many industries. In addition, more than 50 of the world’s foremost independent experts on smart city development — from academia, research and advocacy — have reviewed and contributed to the Guide. A global knowledge base of practices and policies gives cities a mandate for action and a foundation for success. The Readiness Guide serves to focus and structure a city’s path to the 21st Century.

First launched in November 2013, the Guide was updated to V1.5 in 2014 and underwent a major revision in August 2015, including more than 50 new case studies, a new chapter on waste management and more.