A Smart City project is much more than a technology project. In fact, it hides behind a city plan with the aim of improving the lives of its inhabitants in various areas such as improving services, efficiency in the use of resources, security, mobility or welfare, among others. Progressing in these areas, after all, allows us to move towards sustainable development that makes it easier for cities to be better places to live.
To achieve all these goals, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) acts as a real engine. The key is to take advantage of the data that the city generates in its daily activity to feed information systems that, through its treatment, allow decisions to be made that have an impact on improving the quality of life of citizens. In a Smart City, some of this information generated comes from buildings as part of the ecosystem where people, living in the city, interact.
Smart Building Terrassa
In mid-2018, Terrassa took the initiative to apply to the call “National Plan for Smart Territories” of the public entity RED.ES, with a project called “Smart Building Terrassa: The buildings build the Smart City. ” The project was a finalist in the Catalan territory, together with the city of l’Hospitalet de Llobregat.
The initiative consists of the deployment of smart sensors in a significant number of buildings (169) in the city belonging to different entities -City, Generalitat, UPC, CST, FGC, ADIF- and very different purposes: schools, libraries, sports facilities, social housing buildings, markets, cultural centers, unique or historic buildings, industrial buildings, car parks, health centers and hospitals, transport stations and other municipal facilities.
Participatory process
Through a participatory process, the citizens of Terrassa contributed ideas to generate new knowledge and new services through the deployment of smart sensors in the city’s buildings. Thanks to their collaboration, ideas, opinions and proposals were collected -which were later evaluated by a committee of experts- and it served to define a total of 19 functionalities that would be provided to people.
These features, also known as “use cases”, are:
- Energy management and accounting of buildings
- City dashboard portal
- City energy policies and “smart grid” scenario
- Urban resilience “situation room”
- Security and fraud detection in supplies
- Safety and health of the elderly at home
- Real-time air quality map
- Light quality of the night sky
- Noise pollution
- UV index monitoring
- Noise prevention in hospitals
- Interior guidance of buildings
- Mobility in hospitals: smart parking & public transport
- Integration of emergency data into the city platform
- BIM Application for the building management and maintenance
- Management of collaborative use of municipal facilities
- Recharge of electric vehicles
- Integrated mobility information at railway stations
- Guiding blind people at railway stations
The project is currently in the characterization phase of the buildings, which consists of the on-site analysis of its current resources in terms of energy and communications infrastructures. This information -that characterizes each Building- is used as a starting point to take the necessary actions to implement the functionalities that were decided.
Due to its characteristics and scope, this project will continue to need a high degree of collaboration from many people and entities, to whom we would like to express our sincere thanks.
UPC, UPC Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya a Terrassa
CST, Consorci Sanitari de Terrassa
FGC, Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya
ADIF, Administrador de Infraestructuras Ferroviarias
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