The City Centre Review published earlier this year identified potential investments of £4.5m to improve delivery of public services in central Manchester  Credit: PA

Manchester City Council is seeking proposals for digital transformation pilot projects as part of its CityVerve smart cities initiative.

Following the completion of a market consultation exercise last month, the council has issued an invitation to tender looking for providers of smart city technology addressing one of three key areas: mobile city services platforms; homelessness; and city sensing. Successful bidders for the £120,000 contract will provide technology for pilot projects that the city will conduct during the nine-month period beginning at the start of October.

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Proposals should be tailored to the findings of the City Centre Review published by the council earlier this year. The study identified a number of potential improvements to how public services are delivered in central Manchester, and put forward planned investments of £4.5m. 

The pilot projects will form part of the ongoing CityVerve initiative, a smart cities programme which features input from 21 organisations across the private and public sector. The scheme, which won a £10m government prize in 2015, includes the council, both the city’s universities, and the Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, as well as national mapping agency Ordnance Survey.

Private sector firms taking part in CityVerve include technology titans Cisco, Siemens, and BT, as well as IT start-ups such as virtual reality player Clicks + Links and content-aggregation company CollectivWorks.

The council’s invitation to tender said: “The aim [of the pilots] is to positively influence city services to facilitate ‘smart’ improvements, and to help deliver more personal, efficient, flexible products and services.”