In 2016 a major Council in Queensland (population approximately 350,000) adopted their Smart City Implementation Program to guide the deployment of Smart City solutions in a staged manner across the region. By using ICT to connect people, processes, data and things the Council is seeking to improve quality of life, stimulate economic growth and ensure environmental sustainability through their region.

[ui!] began working with the Council on its staged approach to smart city solutions with a year-long Smart City Pilot Project that trialled a number of smart city technologies in two cities. The objective of the project was to create a smart parking demonstrator; develop a better understanding of how citizens and visitors are using and moving around the coast; and, showcase smart city technologies to the public in the Smart Centre and Living Lab through the visualisation functionality of [ui!’s open data platform, UrbanPulse.

Screenshot of the Council UrbanPulse Dashboard

Following the success of the initial pilot project [ui!] was chosen to develop the Smart City Regional Management Platform for the Council project. This project is part of the Council’s broader strategy to develop an integrated Smart City that will generate high value New Intelligent Systems (formally Business Intelligence) and provide access to internal and external clients. It includes a major City Centre at the green-field site in the middle of the city; continued development of the City’s smart technology precinct and activities in the wider Council’s coastal region to deliver benefits of smart city technology at scale.

[ui!] integrated 3rd party smart parking technology, WiFi, smart waste bin sensors, and data from public sources into [ui!]’s UrbanPulse open data platform to create a smart precinct demonstrator. [ui!] also

provided input into planning the green-field CBD site by identifying ways that data can be used to deliver new services to residents and/or improve city operations. As well as extending the number and reach of existing types of sensor data, [ui!] is currently working with Council to ingest data from new devices such as water quality sensors, built environment systems, public transport systems, different types of waste management systems and waste water systems. This work will provide Council with a platform management tool based upon real-time (and/or historical) data from a variety of infrastructure sources presented in an usable, visual format that allows them to view, analyse, forecast and combine information in a way that supports decision making and planning.

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