Using a Smart Urban Platform to improve local governance for innovation, efficiency and transparency
Published on 31 July 2020
Spain
Cataluña
This is the good practice's implementation level. It can be national, regional or local.
About this good practice
With the aim to harness the potential offered by the large amounts of data generated by cities, villages and communities, Barcelona Provincial Council offers a smart urban platform, called Technology Services Platform for Urban Management or PSTGU, to local public administrations in the province to improve local innovation, efficiency and transparency.
The PSTGU is a multi-city, open and interoperable smart urban platform, which contains, stores and publishes the information generated by cities via sensors, actuators and various vertical information systems installed in the municipalities (e.g. mobility, energy, waste management, etc.). It is designed to share information between various urban systems, and municipalities in the territory can also use this platform to share data between them. Therefore, the platform not only helps municipalities to offer municipal services more efficiently and sustainable to their citizens, but it also innovates in utilities and applications for the public by opening the data, and increases municipality-to-municipality cooperation.
The PSTGU is built on open source code and uses Sentilo software for its basic IoT platform, which was originally developed by Barcelona City Council in 2013 and then transformed into a multi-city regional platform by Barcelona Provincial Council. The platform is offered in SaaS (Software as a Service) format to local councils in the province, which are the main stakeholders and beneficiaries of the platform.
The PSTGU is a multi-city, open and interoperable smart urban platform, which contains, stores and publishes the information generated by cities via sensors, actuators and various vertical information systems installed in the municipalities (e.g. mobility, energy, waste management, etc.). It is designed to share information between various urban systems, and municipalities in the territory can also use this platform to share data between them. Therefore, the platform not only helps municipalities to offer municipal services more efficiently and sustainable to their citizens, but it also innovates in utilities and applications for the public by opening the data, and increases municipality-to-municipality cooperation.
The PSTGU is built on open source code and uses Sentilo software for its basic IoT platform, which was originally developed by Barcelona City Council in 2013 and then transformed into a multi-city regional platform by Barcelona Provincial Council. The platform is offered in SaaS (Software as a Service) format to local councils in the province, which are the main stakeholders and beneficiaries of the platform.
Resources needed
The smart urban platform is built on Open Source software, so costs are related to human resources and infrastructure (it can be installed in the Cloud or in a Data Center). It is financially sustainable in the long run since its main purpose is to make municipal services more efficient.
Evidence of success
As of May 2020, 43 municipalities in the region are using the smart urban platform with more than 37,000 sensors connected. This has allowed to increase cooperation between different levels of government and between municipalities. In addition, by opening data available to the public, the PSTGU has enhanced transparency and collaboration.
Barcelona Provincial Council conducts annual surveys on the service provided by the PSTGU to municipalities and the response is positive and satisfactory.
Barcelona Provincial Council conducts annual surveys on the service provided by the PSTGU to municipalities and the response is positive and satisfactory.
Potential for learning or transfer
Collecting and managing data in cities and villages is a common challenge and opportunity in territories and regions around Europe. Therefore, it is believed that this good practice has the potential to be of interest for other regions.
The smart urban platform (PSTGU) is built on open source code and it has been developed in a collaborative way. It uses Sentilo software for its basic IoT platform, which was developed by Barcelona City Council in 2013 and distributed as open source code for use by any city or organisation. Then, Barcelona Provincial Council transformed this city platform into a multi-city regional platform. This exhibits a high potential for replicability and transfer to other regions, since the smart urban platform has already been transferred from city level to supra-municipal level.
In addition, municipalities allow knowledge to be shared by using a single technology, which facilitates the implementation of common technology solutions to be copied elsewhere.
The smart urban platform (PSTGU) is built on open source code and it has been developed in a collaborative way. It uses Sentilo software for its basic IoT platform, which was developed by Barcelona City Council in 2013 and distributed as open source code for use by any city or organisation. Then, Barcelona Provincial Council transformed this city platform into a multi-city regional platform. This exhibits a high potential for replicability and transfer to other regions, since the smart urban platform has already been transferred from city level to supra-municipal level.
In addition, municipalities allow knowledge to be shared by using a single technology, which facilitates the implementation of common technology solutions to be copied elsewhere.
Further information
Website
Good practice owner
Organisation
Barcelona Provincial Council
Spain
Cataluña
Contact
Project Officer