How many parcel points are there actually in your community? And where can they be found? For many policy officials, this was a blind spot until recently. "Municipalities got questions from carriers: can we place a parcel locker? But they didn't have any overview of what was already there," says Ida Poortinga, data visualization expert at DMI. That picture is now there with the Package Point Viewer. 

The latest ITS International features a great example of how real-time mobility data and smart infrastructure directly improve the urban environment. It shows how all aspects of a public-private, data-driven partnership are set up, including technology, management, organization, earning potential and societal added value, and how this works self-sufficiently.

How do you ensure that dozens of projects in an area do not get in each other's way or work alongside each other, but rather reinforce each other? How do you prevent information in the chain from constantly having to be re-entered? Resulting in double work, delays and a high risk of errors? Collaborall developed the BuildHub, a platform that brings the power of Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) systems to the world of area development.

European and certainly Dutch cities face similar challenges: climate change, mobility, the digital transition and civic engagement. In data we find the answers, but as Ralph Geers, alderman of 's-Hertogenbosch, aptly stated, "We as governments are sitting on a pot of gold - data - but we hardly use it."

A large number of participants in the City Deal On AI were in Barcelona in early November for Smart City Expo World Congress, as were many other Dutch people. And so they met during a special session on the exhibition floor. Led by Jan-Willem Wesselink, they discussed not only the ambitions of this collaboration, but especially the concrete intention to get to work with AI for social tasks in cities and villages.

At a meeting on Thursday, Oct. 9, four of the parties that developed the Products and Data Exchange (PDX) spoke about the future of data sharing, governance and community building within the DMI ecosystem. Led by moderator Joost Hoebink, Raymond ter Riet (Luminis Technologies), Dennis Groot (AMS-IX), Gerard van der Hoeven (iSHARE Foundation) and Paul Swaak (Connact.online) discussed their experiences, ambitions and the impact of the PDX in particular. "We have built a technical structure that does what it needs to do and is usable by all DMI participants. But that technology is not an end in itself: we can use it to contribute to smart and sustainable urbanization."