Apart from having the most well-preserved Old Town with buildings ranging from different historical periods such as Baroque, Renaissance and Gothic, a breathtaking riviera and an amazing landscape, the City of Dubrovnik can now also be recognized as the first “city of the future” in Croatia. By signing a cooperation project, Hrvatski Telekom becomes the strategic partner of the City of Dubrovnik in the bid for the European Culture Capital 2020, as announced by Total Croatia News. The pilot project presented by the mayor of Dubrovnik, Andro Vlahušić, and the president of the board at Hrvatski Telekom, Davor Tomašković, on March 21, 2016, involves the implementation of smart street technologies on Obala Stjepana Radića.
The first smart street in Croatia is to include multi-function sensor networks in the new public lighting system that will combine several technologies such as fiber, 4G, and Wi-Fi. The basic technological foundation will be a CISCO open digital platform that can later be upgraded, or integrated into a wide range of smart solutions and applications. In addition to the smart public lighting, there will also be a smart transport solution and innovative parking technology. The first will be able to recognize traffic violations, whereas the latter will identify parked vehicles and introduce mobile parking payment.
Benefits for residents and tourists will include high-speed public Wi-Fi network and access to a variety of applications that will make their stay in Dubrovnik much easier and safe. This project is to improve the overall quality of life in Dubrovnik, as well as lower the costs for the City. According to the statement of the Mayor, “The smart solutions applied in this Street will directly deal with the citizens’ day-to-day problems, such as traffic jams in the city and the search for parking spots, which will improve the quality of life in Dubrovnik and at the same time generate savings for the City in terms of energy and finance. We will continue to work on the comprehensive Dubrovnik Smart City project, in strategic collaboration with Hrvatski Telekom, in order to extend smart solutions to the entire city area of Dubrovnik.”
According to Deutsche Telekom, this project is just one of the many that are being carried out by Deutsche Telekom through a combination of their own innovative ICT technologies and the financing provided by the European Union. Their initiative was first introduced at the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona, emphasizing the focus on a futuristic transformation of European mid-sized cities. Other similar projects include Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Romania.
Smart City Startups Conference is the foremost generator of innovative ideas, which directly influenced the implementation of the Smart City project in Dubrovnik only 4 months after the first edition of the event. Take a look at the video below to find out more about the event that welcomes local community to develop smart city startups that solve real-life problems in their city. The 2016 edition is coming on April 9-12.
Video credit: CityOS