When it comes to smart mobility, only 11 of Germany’s 81 cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants currently qualify as “smart cities.”
Nuremberg tops the ranking, followed by Hamburg, Berlin, and Munich in second to fourth place. Overall, smaller cities have significantly more ground to make up than cities with populations exceeding 500,000. The gap is particularly evident in public transport solutions, shared mobility services, and multimodal transport options. Gabriel Flore, Infrastructure & Mobility expert at PwC Germany, explains: “High-quality mobility services are essential for encouraging people to switch away from private cars and thus support climate-friendly urban development. Municipal transport operators, in particular, play a key role. Their challenge—and opportunity—is to evolve into comprehensive mobility service providers.” Source
Notably, Gütersloh performs comparatively well in the categories of “Mobility” (index score: 86.1) and “Share of Electric Vehicles” (index score: 82.5). However, despite these strong results, the city—with a population of around 101,000—ranks only 75th overall in the national Smart City Index. Source
