// CITY_ASSESSMENT

How smart is Bristol?

Bristol, United Kingdom, scores 63.8% against the DC20 smart city framework in 2026 — ranked #61 of 213 cities assessed, with every finding traceable to a public source.

Smart score

63.8%

Rank

#61 / 213

Criteria present

48 / 82

Evidence coverage

68.3%

Bristol's smart city score by area

Data & Digital Foundation92%

11 present · 2 partial · 0 absent · 8 not assessed

Mobility83%

11 present · 3 partial · 1 absent · 1 not assessed

Environment & Resources89%

12 present · 1 partial · 1 absent · 3 not assessed

Governance & People73%

9 present · 1 partial · 3 absent · 7 not assessed

Economy & Method69%

5 present · 1 partial · 2 absent

Where Bristol is strong

  • Pervasive IoT Sensing
  • Smart Traffic & Adaptive Signals
  • Air-Quality & Climate Monitoring
  • Innovation Ecosystem
  • Integrated Multimodal Mobility (MaaS)

Where the gaps are

  • Data Governance, Privacy & Ethics
  • Digital Inclusion & Literacy
  • City Data Platform / Urban Data Exchange
  • Digital Twin
  • Public Safety & Emergency Response

Evidence highlights

Open Data by Default · Official open data portal

Bristol has an official open data portal hosted at opendata.bristol.gov.uk.

https://opendata.bristol.gov.uk/

Open Data by Default · Open APIs / programmatic access

The Bristol open data portal includes a dedicated page for APIs, indicating programmatic access to data.

https://opendata.bristol.gov.uk/pages/apis/

Open Data by Default · High-value dataset coverage

The open data portal includes high-value datasets such as 'council-spending-over-500'.

https://opendata.bristol.gov.uk/explore/dataset/council-spending-over-500/information/

Pervasive IoT Sensing · Deployed sensor networks

Bristol has deployed sensor networks, including 'vivacity-sensor' datasets for traffic and a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) on the Clifton Suspension Bridge, as part of initiatives like 'Bristol Is Open'.

https://www.bristol.gov.uk/policies-plans-strategies/bristol-is-open

About this assessment

Bristol was assessed against the 82 criteria of the DC20 smart city framework on 2026-07-01 by AI agents gathering evidence from official public sources. Each criterion is marked present, partial or absent, and every finding links to where it was found — see how smart cities are measured. Scores refresh continuously as cities publish new evidence.