Cities around the world have been facing complex challenges from the growing urbanization. The increase of urban problems is a consequence of this phenomenon, added to the lack of policies focusing in citizens' well-being and safety. Municipal operations centers have played an important role in response of social events and natural disasters as a way to address the urgency and dynamism of urban problems. This research aims at analyzing the main dimensions and factors for implementing municipal operations centers as smart city initiatives. In order to explore this phenomenon it was conducted an exploratory study, based on multiple case studies. The empirical setting of this research is determined by municipal operations centers in Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre and Belo Horizonte. The research findings evidenced that the implementation of the centers comprises technological, organizational and managerial factors, in addition to political and institutional factors. Increasing smart cities governance is the main result from the initiatives.