Alba Iulia – Landmark for Smart Cities in Romania

Abstract

Worldwide, we have remarked a dynamic development of Smart City projects. However, several cities are facing important challenges on their way of digital transformation. Thus, the rapid urbanization of cities imposes a series of social, economic, architectural and environmental challenges to the central and local authorities. Alongside with the development of cities and enlargement of their public services, we witness the complex governance process. In this context, several cities in Romania, such as Cluj Napoca, Brasov, Alba Iulia, Bucharest have already started to develop a series of Smart City projects. The measurement standard for a city for being smart is provided by the effectiveness for managing its resources and its inhabitants’ life quality. The current paper aims to present the state?of?the?art of smart cities in Romania, highlighting the main accomplishments and innovations of Alba Iulia Smart City. It also emphasises as successful factor for the development of smart cities, the role and place of information and communication technology, incorporating Internet of Things, cloud computing and big data, thus making the services of a municipality more interactive and efficient.