Brisbane is on track to join Barcelona, Toronto and Rio De Janeiro as a “smart city” capable of collecting and analysing real time data to improve liveability, according to IT guru Gordon Feller.

Feller, the Director of US-based Cisco Systems, said the Queensland capital already had the vision in place.

But speaking at a CitySmart Leaders Lunch, he said Brisbane still needed to put in the technological architecture and collaborate with business to realise its potential.

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Created by Brisbane City Council, CitySmart aims to transform it into Australia’s most sustainable city.

Mr Feller said Brisbane was following in the footsteps of Barcelona and Rio De Janeiro by adopting a city-wide “dashboard” to enable residents, business and councils to monitor data such as energy consumption and traffic flow.

“In Barcelona, there are three types of dashboards,” he told AAP.

“The first layer is fairly basic and allows people to be walking down the street and access kiosks to find out information such as energy consumption in their suburb.

“The next level is for people who are managing different districts of the city and are concerned with carbon footprints, because the city as a whole is working towards reducing emissions.

“Then the third layer is more of an analytical and predictive dashboard which allows councils to try and prepare for the future of their city.”

Feller was particularly enthused about Brisbane’s plans to implement a district cooling system.

The system is a centralised water chilling system to replace air conditioning chillers and cooling towers in individual CBD buildings.

“I think its a fantastic idea and I’m sure its going to work,” Feller said.

-AAP