İstanbul
İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İMM) started a comprehensive smart city transformation initiative and roadmap in 2015 with its related companies like İSBAK. Smart City Vision of Istanbul developed within this transformation project is; “to be the smartest city in the world that makes the most contribution to the quality of life by 2029” along with short (2019), medium (2023) and long (2029) term strategic objectives and smart city roadmap. Eight focus areas have been identified as “mobility, environment, energy, governance, economy, life, human and safety”.
Ankara
Some of the applications and projects implemented in the city of Ankara that facilitate urban life and improve the quality of life are City and Traffic Cameras that are used to both manage the traffic and provide safety within the city; the Intelligent Transportation System that includes traffic information, displays, signaling system for Central Junction Control, Dynamic Junction Control System and mobile and web traffic density maps. Moreover, the city has Environmental projects such as Integrated Solid Waste Management System, Smart Water Management Systems.
İzmir
İzmir manages more than 10,000 smart devices and has the longest fiber-optic network since 2017 in Türkiye with 621 thousand meters of fiber optic cable within the scope of IzmirNet Project and Intelligent Traffic Systems. In addition to the mobility development, Izmir also has wastewater treatment plants and solid waste disposals, which are supported by Solar panels, installed on 10,000 m2 roof area in the workshop buildings of ESHOT General Directorate and eco-lighting systems in public spaces as Environmental Projects. The city’s startup eco-system has been flourishing and it has been attracting young entrepreneurs in recent years.
Bursa
Bursa Metropolitan Municipality founded Smart City & Innovation Department in order to achieve an integrated strategy within the municipality and identified five smart city categories as Smart Transportation, Smart Governance, Smart Environment, Smart Society, and Smart Healthcare. Bursa city like some other cities started smart city solutions in mobility such as smart junction, city and traffic cameras, traffic density maps, smart car parking solutions, public transportation information systems. The city also has environmental projects such as Energy Production from Methane Gas, Energy production with sludge incineration, Tracking of Sea Brooms and Solar Power Plants. Under the environment category, the municipality promoted the use of renewable energy resources and formed a SCADA center under BUSKİ to achieve ubiquitous control, observation and real time decision making regarding these facilities.
Konya
The projects and implementations within the scope of Konya smart city vision are carried out by Information Technology Department of Konya Metropolitan Municipality (KMM) and it’s known for its smart city initiatives in Turkey, especially in the areas of transportation and e-municipality. Fleet management and passenger information are provided with the Smart Public Transportation System (ATUS) and dynamic traffic management, incident detection and traffic information provided with Central Traffic Operation System (METIS). To preserve the historic city center, Konya gave importance to the use of bicycles, bicycle sharing program and the use of a tram without catheters (without the use of poles and wires). Konya has 500 bicycles in its bicycle sharing program and with its 515 km bicycle road.
Gaziantep
The Mayor of Gaziantep Metropolitan Municipality (GMM) is the president of Union of Municipality of Türkiye and has a strong vision and commitment to smart cities development. Within the scope of smart city applications, local telecom operator Turkcell offered various technological solutions to GMM under 8 main headings. Over $11 million in 2015 was saved in GMM through smart city practices which provided efficient use of natural resources and the quality of life of the city residents have been increased. The project also achieved savings and efficiency in electricity and water consumption and excavation management. It has also been planned to establish a technological infrastructure in the Zeugma Museum and the zoo, which is visited by 2.5 million people annually.
Kocaeli
As the region has been shaken by strong earthquakes in the near past, Kocaeli Metropolitan Municipality (KMM) focuses also on smart initiatives within disaster and emergency management in addition to other typical domains. The smart city solution aims to provide an automatic warning to stakeholders against gas leakages, water, and electricity related explosive mechanisms in factories before an earthquake.
Eskişehir-Tepebaşı
In addition to the Eskişehir Metropolitan Municipality’s work, the district municipality of Tepebaşı has received a financial grant from the European Commission for -REMOURBAN-Smart City Project which was conducted between 2015- 2020, for the first time as a lead city from Turkey. REMOURBAN is a 5-year long project (2015-2020) funded by the European Commission's H2020 Research and Innovation program.
Çanakkale
Çanakkale on my Mind Project is a smart city transformation initiative to improve the urban quality of life and to ensure a sustainable environment while providing a competitive advantage to Çanakkale on a global scale. Çanakkale on my Mind initiative is the first smart city project in Turkey which started with the visionary leadership of a conglomerate born in that city, Kale Group, in collaboration with a prominent NGO aiming to contribute to Türkiye becoming an information society (TBV) that was matched with the enthusiasm of local stakeholders.
Antalya
The main smart city projects that are initiated by Antalya Metropolitan Municipality are: electronic control system in traffic, city information kiosks especially for tourism, panic button and remote health applications, free internet services at designated points in several districts, child and elderly tracking devices/programs and voice navigation applications. An integrated Smart City Management Platform was also established to monitor, control, and manage smart services from a center and to collect data. One of the major projects is the transformation of an urban area in Kepez Santral Neighborhood. The Municipality treats the urban transformation project as a chance to set up a smart area that would be built based on ICT solutions in the themes of energy, environment and transportation.
Please find below detailed information about concrete smart city projects and an overall outlook of the Turkish smart city industries.
