The city of Stockholm has been chosen as the Smart City of 2019 at the Smart City Expo World Congress during the award giving ceremony hosted this evening. The Global Smart city awards are presented every year to the most outstanding initiatives and projects in the urban innovation and transformation industry. The remaining awards –, Innovative Idea, Digital Transformation, Urban Environment, Mobility, Governance y Finance and Inclusive & Sharing Cities– have been given to Modular e-mobility lorry platform for urban services developed by FCC Environment; the world’s First 5G-Powered Digital Twin City by the Government of Yingtan (China); the social and urban integration initiative in Barrio 31 Buenos Aires (Argentina); the Los Angeles (USA) Data Science Federation; the Urban Cable Cars of La Paz and El Alto (Bolivia); and the Connecting satellite and operational data to trigger predictive maintenance by Hexagon in Madison (USA), respectively.
Stockholm’s Smart and connected city – Inclusive, sustainable and thriving initiative has been key for the jury’s decision to name the Swedish capital as Smart city of 2019. Its strategy to create a smart and connected city, via innovation, openness and connectivity to provide Stockholmers the highest quality of life and the best environment for business rose above the other finalists.
The Jury, comprised of representatives from the Barcelona City Council, the UITP International Association of Public Transport, UN-Habitat, the World Bank and Smart City Expo World Congress has considered that in a context in which Climate change continues to present a growing and significant global challenge to humanity and the biosphere in the 21st century, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development but also Paris Agreement have been created to tackle these issues. At city level, Stockholm is making efforts for years in this way implementing a strategy, developed together with the Stockholmers, focused on smart and integrated solutions in a number of areas such as low energy districts, integrated infrastructure and sustainable urban mobility.
Innovative and inclusive cities
In the Innovative Idea category, the winner is the Modular, versatile, self-supporting, high efficiency e-mobility lorry platform for urban services developed by FCC Environment in Barcelona (Spain). The project consists in the design of a self-supporting modular lorry chassis with permanent electric traction, plug-in function, high-power batteries and advanced low entry cab that is suitable to all urban service purposes, economic due to its industrial development and applied on side-loading waste collection bodywork.
IoT-Based Yingtan: The World’s First 5G-Powered Digital Twin City by the Government of Yingtan (China) won the Digital Transformation project. Yingtan is piloting IoT and envisions an “IoT-based, Smart Yingtan.” The initiative is is building the world’s first 5G all-domain digital twin city, and uses 5G+NB-IoT networks, digital foundation for cities, high-precision city information models, and an AI-powered IoT brain to develop new applications.
The Government of Buenos Aires (Argentina) received the Inclusive and Sharing Cities award for its Tackling informality: social and urban integration in Barrio 31 initiative that analyzes what policy should be put forward to tackle informal settlements. For years, the only answer involved evictions and social housing in the outskirts. The project is changing that reality in Barrio 31 and is finding new ways to integrate the neighborhood to the formal city.
The Governance and Finance award has gone to the Los Angeles Data Science Federation launched by the City of Los Angeles – Information Technology Agency. The Data Science Federation is a collaborative research partnership between the City of Los Angeles and 18 Los Angeles area colleges and universities. This federation has produced over 40 projects that have benefitted LA’s residents as departments and elected officials find valuable insight on how to improve City operations, services, and policies while university students and professors benefit from working on real-world data challenges with access to real-world datasets and data sources.
The Mobilty award has gone to the System of Urban Cable Cars of La Paz and El Alto by the State Cable Transportation Company Mi Teleférico in La Paz (Bolivia). This metropolitan integration network was the first main public transport network of a city made up of cable cars. It comprises 10 operational lines, 31.6 km and 37 stations, being the largest urban cable car system in the world and has been used since its opening by more than 242 million users.
The last category, Urban Environment, rewarded the Connecting satellite and operational data to trigger predictive maintenance for utilities by Hexagon in Madison (USA). The project addressed the need to reduce the cost of sewer system maintenance by preventing the breakdown of sewer pipes caused by subsidence or ground instability. Using satellite monitoring combined with operational data it improved the effectiveness of inspections by 40% and can now predict future problems.
Barcelona, November 20th 2019
Source: Fira de Barcelona
Leave a Reply