Three smart cities in Germany
Dresden, Flensburg and Wuppertal: three of the many cities in Germany that are implementing smart city ideas.
Dresden: open communication
Digital networks are all the rage in Dresden. A smart city, the Saxon state capital is working on innovative solutions for the city of the future. One key part of this is the active digital and analogue involvement of local people. The city government likewise pursues an open communication strategy: its open data portal makes available 800 transparent data sets on urban topics - covering everything from the environment and geography to the justice system and local elections.
Dresden is also pushing forward numerous green projects: for example, the city is building an energy self-sufficient residential quarter with smart-home technologies and developing a “Cleema App” to motivate people to go green.
Flensburg: intelligent sensors
The city of Flensburg in the far north of Germany is part of the “smart border region between the seas”. The city is using data to improve the lives of the people living between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea. This also helps people with simple everyday things like finding a parking space. Sensors installed in the city centre register the number of visitors and indicate vacant car parking spaces in an app. Other sensors installed on park benches or streetlamps gather data on air quality or noise levels in the city. Thanks to such “smart street furniture”, appropriate action to address problems can be taken whenever necessary. In addition, Flensburg is developing measurement and forecasting systems to protect the city against flooding.
Wuppertal: focusing on health
The smart city of Wuppertal wants above all to improve the health of its inhabitants. To this end, the city in North Rhine-Westphalia is working on a digital health platform to encourage people to adopt a healthy diet and take regular exercise. It draws on data from the direct vicinity of users to provide them with customised healthcare advice. This could mean for example that the platform would send out a warning if a person were in too hot a location - and would indicate the nearest cool place.
