Cisco and the City of Hamburg have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that foresees the creation of pilot projects around smart traffic, smart street lighting, infrastructure sensing and remote citizen services.
The MoU enables access for Hamburg to the Cisco Smart+Connected Communities™ (S+CC) reference architectures and provides a framework for defining and evaluating various related initiatives. Cisco also will help the City of Hamburg to develop a digital agenda.
By building on the “Internet of Things” and innovative technologies, Cisco says Hamburg aims to improve the quality of life for its residents by enabling greater mobility, efficiency, safety and sustainability. Several partners are supporting the first projects, including AGT International, avodaq, InnoTec Data, Philips, Streetline, T-Systems and Worldsensing. Additional partners are invited to join the open ecosystem.
The MoU follows on the Smart City Summit, hosted in Hamburg in December 2013, where representatives of public sector, research and education institutions as well as local and international companies came together to define a Smart City framework.
"Today, cities are in competition — same as companies. They are looking for ways to create jobs, drive profitable growth and productivity, become more efficient and — most importantly — increase the quality of life for residents,” said Michael Ganser, SVP of Central and Eastern Europe at Cisco.
The planned pilot projects include:
- Deployment of smart street lighting
- Smart Traffic system to optimize traffic flows and detect incidents earlier
- Environment and infrastructure sensing
- Virtual citizen services solution, where administrative services are provided through a high-definition, remote video kiosk
The City of Hamburg also plans to develop the Port of Hamburg into a smartPORT in order to further increase the efficiency of the current infrastructure and quality of services. An intelligent parking space control system for trucks and loaders will be developed near the port to improve the traffic and parking situation. This will be complemented by a fully integrated traffic-management system allowing an optimized flow of cars and trucks, which will help prevent traffic jams and detect potential incidents.
Besides optimizing energy consumption through smart streetlights, the Hamburg Port Authority also is planning to capture and analyze emissions data in order to be able to provide more reliable forecasts on noise, temperatures, humidity and pollution. Last but not least, port infrastructures will be monitored to ensure safe and efficient operations.
In related news, Arizona State University (ASU) and the Dutch Municipality of Haarlemmermeer recently partnered to create the world’s first regional plan based on the principles of a circular economy. ASU’s center in Haarlemmermeer will act as facilitator for the municipality and various stakeholders in the region to define and outline the strategic plan. The project includes designing the circular economy strategy and identifying closed-loop energy, water, matter and other resource cycles that are pragmatic, market-based and adaptable for the region.
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Founder & Principal Consultant, Hower Impact
Mike Hower is the founder of Hower Impact — a boutique consultancy delivering best-in-class strategic communication advisory and support for corporate sustainability, ESG and climate tech.
Published May 7, 2014 11am EDT / 8am PDT / 4pm BST / 5pm CEST