The Haselhorst Associates Smart City Ranking is based on systematic data collection and analysis covering ten key areas of urban public services. For each area, data is collected based on defined criteria, weighted according to relevance, and included in the evaluation. In total, over 33,000 data points from exclusively publicly available sources are incorporated into the ranking each year.
We take a step-by-step approach: First, the smart city potential of each municipality is determined using around 60 indicators, most of which are derived from static data sets provided by the federal government. At the same time, we record the actual degree of implementation through a comprehensive qualitative analysis of current strategies and projects. Both dimensions contribute to determining the degree of smart city development in each city. This serves as the basis for the ranking and gives the nearly 400 German cities an initial impression of their current status in smart city development.