Presentation of CitiSim to city council of Rivas Vaciamadrid
On 20th of October of 2017, Abalia and representatives of the University of Castilla la Mancha (UCLM) met with Carlos Ventura, head of the Telecommunications Department of the Rivas Vaciamadrid city council, in its town hall. This city is famous because it’s one of the cities that are part of the Spanish Network of Intelligent Cities (RECI).
As a part of this meeting, the CitiSim project was presented outlining the research lines that are being followed and the tools that are being used to reach the desired outcomes. Also, a series of issues affecting the smart cities of today were addressed, and, from the City Council were exposed some specific requirements that could be addressed within the CitiSim project.
As for the usual difficulties inherent to smart cities, there is the problem of little standardization, especially when sending and handing data. Another common problem is the lack of unification of all the elements in a common platform, being it one of the primary objectives of CitiSim.
Regarding specific requirements, Rivas counts with a considerable number of devices (cameras, WIFI network, solar panels,…), but many of them aren’t interconnected, and they can consume significant amounts of energy when used continuously, which becomes an element to consider.
Likewise, from the City Council interest was expressed in the early detection of water leaks in the supply system, as well as the ability to reduce/increase the public lighting of the streets, according to the influx of people and vehicles, taking into account the time of the day.
They also showed interest in the modeling of the urban waste collection process, choosing the most efficient route and making it least annoying for the inhabitants of the city. They displayed a particular interest in the concept of Digital Twins. In that sense, the fact of being able to create a virtual world, connected and representative of the real one, will bring lots of possibilities that will help to model smart cities.
Finally, it was concluded that the primary objectives would be the unification of data, obtaining a platform in which all devices and sensors interact according to their needs, and avoiding the use of proprietary software and individual APIs, in such a way that citizens, as end users, feel more comfortable and have greater ease to interact with their city.
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