1. Sustainability Problem: 40% of traffic in city centers is caused by drivers looking for parking spaces. This gridlocked inertia is a universal frustration creating increased congestion, noise and pollution in areas where citizens live and work. Barcelona, Spain had been facing this issue for a long time.
Category: Energy, Waste
2. Solution implemented: Smart parking using IoT sensors, apps and innovative traffic routing
- Barcelona has been a pioneer in implementing IoT and smart technologies to improve civic service. As a part of it, they have identified traffic congestion as one of the areas to be worked on.
- Using smart sensors, display boards and apps, drivers can locate nearest empty parking spot, park and get a parking receipt over the app.
- Barcelona has also also come up with a design solution, to identify a group of city blocks (called superblocks) and allows traffic only in its perimeter, thereby reducing traffic congestion in the inner crossroads of the superblocks. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZORzsubQA_M)
3. Organizational Stakeholders: City Government, Community leaders, technology vendors
4. Steps for deployment:
- Identify locations across the city where this technology can be implemented in.
- Educate communities and citizens to accept the changes taking place in their neighborhood.
- Increase Internet connectivity across the city, to help drivers connect with the app easily.
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