Portugal’s capital Lisbon is currently testing a number of smart city initiatives to improve energy efficiency, sustainability and quality of life in the city as part of the city’s involvement in the Sharing Cities project.
Under this smart city project, a number of European cities have joined forces to explore how digital technologies can be used to improve quality of life for citizens.
Lisbon has defined a smart city strategy to guide its transition over the coming decades, backed by a commitment from the city council to invest 307 million euros ($ 366 million).
Lisbon’s smart city project aims to attract more people to the city by promoting energy efficient housing, e-mobility, smart living and smart aging solutions. It also aims to boost the economy and job creation by investing in R&D and combining this with policies to attract more entrepreneurs and improve access to higher education resources.
Lisbon has defined an area which is home to 100,000 inhabitants in which some of the city’s smart city initiatives are being demonstrated. Some of these initiatives include:
The optimization of energy consumption in buildings by installing and testing smart meters that limit maximum electricity flow and allow building and homeowners to better understand and control their energy consumption. This initiative also seeks the development of a map of consumption and production of energy in the city through the use of smart meters, allowing for a better control of the energy grid.
Lisbon is also testing smart mobility solutions. The city is using monitoring systems to be able to better control traffic flow. Through smart mobility tools, Lisbon is adapting street lighting based on pedestrian and vehicle flows, so that lighting can be dimmed when no traffic or pedestrians are detected.
Since 2014, Lisbon has been developing a large-scale project to implement an integrated operations center, allowing it to centrally control all of its various sensors and devices.
In July this year, NEC Portugal has been awarded a contract with the municipality of Lisbon to implement a smart city infrastructure project aimed at improving the daily operation and coordination of multiple city services. The operation of the infrastructure systems to be developed by NEC is slated to commence by the end of this year.
NEC will utilize its cloud city operation center (CCOC) to integrate 10 internal systems managed by Lisbon’s city government and 30 external systems managed by several partners of the municipality of Lisbon, and build a municipal service operation center capable of overseeing the entire city. In addition, NEC will use its artificial intelligence (AI) and internet of things (IoT) technologies for real-time collection and analysis of information from around the city, thereby contributing to the swift provision of municipal services in response to situations such as illegally parked vehicles, the detection of suspicious objects, and more.
Image source: The Telegraph
