Bristol Is Open — A City-Wide Smart City Testbed, and Its Wind-Down

Bristol Is Open (BiO) launched in April 2015 as a joint venture between Bristol City Council and the University of Bristol to build a city-wide 'programmable' digital testbed — combining fibre, Wi-Fi, a city-scale Internet-of-Things network and 5G trials — that researchers and companies could use to pilot smart-city technologies.

Researchers and companies used the testbed to pilot software-defined networking, IoT/big-data analytics and CCTV analytics, in projects including Big Clout and Replicate. Barely a year in, Bristol City Council commissioned Perform Green in April 2016 for a viability review, which found 'a lack of business focus, low levels of investment and an optimal organisational structure.' Perform Green's turnaround work included commercial audits, a new sponsorship model (including a reported £1 million sponsorship from Nokia) and roughly £700,000 in working capital.

The turnaround stabilised operations enough that Bristol was ranked the UK's top smart city by the Huawei/Navigant Smart Cities Index in October 2017 and won a Smart City award at Mobile World Congress in March 2018.

The recovery did not last as an independent entity. Per Bristol City Council's own published policy page, after three years of operation the joint venture ended, with the council taking sole ownership of BiO to complete its remaining projects — and 'the company is now dormant.' Some functions were folded into the council's broader smart-city work (e.g. the Bristol Operations Centre) and academic activity continued via the University of Bristol's Bristol Digital Futures Institute, but BiO itself did not survive as a going concern — a cautionary counterpoint showing award wins and pilot activity are not proof of institutional durability.