Best practice examples for smart city projects in Europe
The topic of smart cities is not only of interest to Berlin. Together with the Senate Department for Economics, Energy and Public Enterprises, we took a look at what measures and projects other cities are working on in the area of smart city and what their potential is for Berlin.
The topic of smart cities is not only of interest to Berlin. Cities around the world are confronted with challenges like resource scarcity, climate change, increasing social conflicts and social division. But as the power and potential of technology continues to increase, so too do the options for strategically and creatively addressing these challenges. Together with the Senate Department for Economics, Energy and Public Enterprises, we took a look at what measures and projects other cities are undertaking in the area of smart cities and what potential applications these initiatives have for Berlin.
The Netherlands: Amsterdam
The city of Amsterdam developed a website where citizens can report maintenance issues, like waste collection problems, dangerous traffic situations, or malfunctioning public infrastructure. The aim of this platform is to optimise and improve the services offered by the city.
Smart City Profile: Amsterdam (German only)
Spain: Barcelona
For years, Barcelona has been considered a pioneer in the field of smart cities, regularly topping lists of the smartest or most innovative cities. In 2013, the city launched “Sentilo”, a data collection and sensor platform for the Internet of Things. The platform collects data from a network of sensors distributed throughout the city, making this data available to citizens to view and reuse.
Smart City Profile: Barcelona (German only)
Spain: Barcelona, Netherlands: Amsterdam
The DECODE project (“Decentralised Citizen Owned Data Economy”) was launched in 2016 with the aim of giving citizens back sovereignty over their data and creating a shared free data infrastructure (“data commons”). The project, funded by the European Union under the Horizon 2020 programme, aimed to develop technologies and applications that allow citizens to keep their data private or donate it to the common good. DECODE includes a number of tools and pilot projects that have been launched in Amsterdam and Barcelona.
Smart City Profile: Barcelona, Amsterdam (German only)
USA: Boston
Despite its good track record with traffic accidents, the city of Boston has taken a proactive approach to making its streets even safer for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists. The Vision Zero Boston project is based on the idea that even one death from traffic accidents is too many. The goal is to completely eliminate traffic fatalities by 2030. To achieve this goal, the Vision Zero Boston team has developed three different components.
Smart City Profile: Boston (German only)
Finland: Helsinki
Varaamo is part of the “City of Helsinki Strategy Programme 2013-2016” and the “IT programme 2015-2017”. The pilot version of the project was launched in Spring 2015 at two libraries in Helsinki and has since spread to other locations in the city. Varaamo provides citizens with a platform with which they can reserve rooms or workspaces belonging to the city for their own private use. The project has a prototypical character and actively invites citizens to provide feedback on the service via its homepage; it also links directly to the project’s GitHub repo, where the code basis for the project can be viewed.
Smart City Profile: Helsinki (German only)
Germany: Herrenberg
The city of Herrenberg’s networked transport platform “stadtnavi” was released as a web application in May 2020 to promote sustainable mobility. The app offers intermodal routing to find the shortest and most environmentally-friendly route using all available means of transportation; it also displays open parking spaces and the location of RV-specific parking, as well as the location of e-bike and electric car charging stations, bike service stations, and carpooling options
Smart City Profile: Herrenberg (German only)
Netherlands: Rotterdam
Rotterdam has the largest port in Europe. With this comes a large amount of waste that the city has to deal with. With the Smart Waste Management project, the city, in cooperation with the company Enevo, wants to reduce driving distances for garbage trucks by better connecting them with landfills and thereby leading to greater resource efficiency. Information on how full a given truck is flows into a central system, which is then used as the basis for optimised route planning. The end result: fewer trucks are on the roads transporting garbage, and these trucks are able to be routed onto more efficient routes.