Constant urban monitoring of the environment, energy, safety and citizen wellbeing in Puglia’s first Smart City

Smart Cities of the South has received the backing of the Municipality of Bari, in cooperation with a temporary grouping of companies formed by Exprivia, Links e IBM and the technical support of Tera for the Smart Building aspect.

The companies, with the supervision of the Technological Innovation, Information Systems and TLC Department of the Municipality of Bari, have developed a computerised urban governance system that uses Big Data and the whole range of Business Intelligence, Machine Learning and Data Visualisation instruments.

The system is part of the M.U.S.I.C.A. project (Monitoraggio Urbano attraverso Soluzioni Innovative per Città Agili - Urban Monitoring through Innovative Solutions for Agile Cities), financed through the European Regional Development Fund Operational Programme 2007/2013, a three-year project aimed at making administration ever more transparent and improving quality of life for the general public.

The project involves the pooling and analysis on one web dashboard (Urban Control Centre) of the information acquired from various data sources, both internal (such as the Municipal Police, Registry Office, Regional Information System and Public Assets, Technological Innovation Department, Information Systems and TLC) and external (including Istat, Arpa, AMIU, AMGAS, Enel, AQP and Amtab), as well as those from various infrastructures connected with the system (such as security cameras, the social networks of the Municipality of Bari, and the BaRisolve application).

The integration of this information produces an urban map with a complete image of the city to support the strategic and operational decisions of the Municipality of Bari in the fields of the environment, energy, security and public wellbeing. There are many simulation scenarios that can be activated thanks to the 'digital brain' and that are useful for planning actions and investments both from an urban and social point of view.

For example, by integrating pollution and weather data, it is possible to make forecasts able to ensure better management of city traffic when necessary to keep smog below the threshold. In addition, the system enables cross-referencing of the city’s environmental and energy efficiency parameters to ensure sustainable management of public street lighting and to monitor the quality of waste collection service, enabling the future, monitoring of proper waste disposal by the public, in accordance with municipal by-laws.

Lastly, in a Smart City, the platform is integrated with the BaRisolve app, with the direct involvement of citizens who will be able to send various reports, about things such as holes in the road, abandoned waste, and the upkeep of public green spaces, thus enriching the urban data available to the Municipality.

Multi-protocol sensors provided by Tera have been installed in the offices of certain municipal departments. By detecting certain indicators, these sensors are able to modify the environmental and energy conditions of the offices in real time according to the weather conditions and the presence of people. The project envisages that, in the future, sensors will also be installed in the city’s underpasses to detect, for example, flooding in sufficient time to prevent hazardous situations or congestion.

“We are confident,” explains Felice Vitulano, Chief Technical Officer at Exprivia Spa, “that, at the end of the three years spent on the MUSICA project, the city of Bari can represent a best practice in terms of Smart Cities at a national level. We can now move on to implementing the system with all the potential offered by the 5G networks, which will make cities ever more connected and the authorities able to make operating decisions on traffic, safety and mobility, also in real time”.

“The M.U.S.I.C.A. project,” says Angelo Tomasicchio, Technological Innovation Councillor of the Municipality of Bari, “forms part of an overall vision where the municipal administration and Technological Innovation Department are making concrete efforts to overcome the digital divide, to develop innovation and to constantly seek better ways to communicate directly with the public. The Municipality has even received various national and international awards for M.U.S.I.C.A., such as the “10x10 Award = 100 projects for changing the Public Administration”, organised by the 2017 PA Forum, for the best project in “Smart City, Big Data and IoT” and a “Best Practice Award” at the EPSA 2017 awards promoted by the European Institute of Public Administration. These rewards are shared with Exprivia and the entire working group”.