The cITy Upgrade conference, organised by the Association of Cities in Croatia, took place on 1 and 2 October 2026 at Amadria Park (Hotel Ivan) in Šibenik. It brought together people working on the digital and technological development of local communities, with a focus on practical solutions to the challenges cities face today.
On 2 October, Irina Stipanović of Infra Plan Consulting, an iDriving partner, moderated the round-table discussion “The Predictive City: Artificial Intelligence for Infrastructure Safety, Maintenance and Resilience” and then presented its conclusions to the conference.
From reactive to predictive
The discussion looked at how artificial intelligence can improve the management of transport infrastructure by connecting data from cameras, sensors, vehicles, drones and satellites. With AI models, risks can be recognised automatically, the condition of infrastructure can be predicted and maintenance can be planned in good time.
The central idea was the shift from reactive to predictive maintenance: fixing problems before they put road users at risk, rather than after. Participants discussed concrete examples from iDriving and the experience of the City of Karlovac, one of the project’s pilot sites. They also addressed the practical challenges of putting such solutions in place, from data quality and model reliability to implementation costs.
For cities and road authorities, these are exactly the questions that decide whether new technology makes streets safer in practice. iDriving is testing its solutions in real conditions to help answer them.