Barcelona joins forces with Cisco to create a smart city

Barcelona’s Mayor, Xavier Trias yesterday signed an agreement with President and CEO of Cisco, John Chambers to set up a pilot project in the Catalan capital to develop the model of the city of the future; the so-called smart city.

Using Barcelona as a test bed, technological solutions will be sought for the city’s amenities and services. In the beginning, a total of seven such pilot schemes will be run; from the design of a new public lighting system which will be charged not by fixed infrastructure, but by lumens consumed, or that of how to monitor and save on the cost of energy used by the 2,000 public buildings in Barcelona. Other projects will look into such diverse areas as; taking full advantage of rainfall, how to manage relationships between the city’s inhabitants and such key aspects of urban life as information systems, urban features, transport networks or car parking.

The partnership with Cisco will be run from the new innovation centre to be located in the Smart City Campus in the 22@ district. The centre will be provided with resources to design, develop and try out the abovementioned pilot projects, run in conjunction with a score of workers from Cisco. The company’s president was keen to underline the importance of Barcelona as a leader in the field of smart cities and the need to make the metropolis into “the cutting edge of innovation” in this field.

Source: La Vanguardia, 02/03/12