CITY PROFILE: GOOD PRACTICE CITY, GIJÓN, SPAIN

With a population of around 280,000 inhabitants, Gijón is a medium-sized city situated in the northern coastline of Spain and it is the largest city in the region of Asturias. It has

long been subject to an industrial regeneration process and nowadays it is characterized by sectors such as services ICTs, trade and creative industries.

The technological development for Gijón City is centered around the Citizen Card being a key access to public services, facilities and also as a means of payment. Thus the Gijón Citizen Card has become an integrated tool of public services as well as a coordination and loyalty mechanism.

Gijón City Council has developed different policies intended to boost mobility, healthy habits and societal behaviours to improve quality of life. This affects every day citizens, tourists and enterprises who need to access different services and resources from the City, and in some cases pay for them. The city has answered their needs with a smart card: Gijón Citizen Card. It allows the identification of citizens so they can access services, public facilities and setting up profiles to establish a better match between their demands and public policies. The citizen card has been launched on 2002 and has an exponential growth, both numbers of users and numbers of services. At the moment the citizen card has become on a nuclear part of the Gijón Smart City Strategy, upon taking shape as an  identity element of the City. Currently, more than 300.000 card owners use their citizen card to access and pay services and municipal and activities  facilities. Citizen card has an average of 32.000 uses/day and around 1.000.000 uses/ month.