Bucharest smartens up
Bucharest has become the next smart city within Deutsche Telekom’s European footprint. DT’s subsidiary Telekom Romania now offers a number of innovative smart city services to Bucharest’s citizens.
DT Group’s latest smart city project has been implemented in one of Bucharest’s most popular leisure spots, Tineretului Park, and is a premiere in Romania. It combines four cutting edge services: Smart Parking, Wi-Fi connectivity, City Safe and Smart Lighting with the aim to make citizens’ lives easier and safer, while also helping local administrations to be more efficient and to reduce operational costs.
A visit to Tineretului Park has just become a lot simpler: The innovative Smart Parking service lets drivers find out in real time whether there are free parking spaces available via the Tap & Park mobile app. Upcoming features of the service will also allow drivers to pay the parking fee directly via their mobile phone, as well as notify them when their parking time expires. Once visitors have arrived in the park, the newly implemented Wi-Fi service provides free internet access in a designated area. This service can also be extended to the benefit of the local authorities, providing data analytics features with a monitoring tool for better management of city services.
Safety is key
The safety of Bucharest’s citizens is also high on the agenda. The newly established City Safe service is a video surveillance system which alerts on potentially dangerous or illegal activities, such as vandalism, trespassing or parking violations. The park’s Smart Lighting service is also designed to provide additional safety. It is equipped with LED lights and controllers sensitive to movement and ambient light intensity. They can be controlled remotely or automatically to increase the light intensity when night falls or whenever somebody comes close to them.
Deutsche Telekom Group is very active in the smart city arena across Europe and has already implemented a number of smart city projects in Hamburg, Pisa, Dubrovnik, Budapest and Prague, amongst others. And the need for smart city solutions is constantly increasing. “We are currently undergoing the largest wave of urban growth in history. More than half of the world’s population now lives in towns and cities, and by 2030 this number will increase to about 5 billion. It is no wonder that today’s cities face tremendous challenges – from rising populations and shrinking budgets to the need to economize on the use of resources,” says Ralf Nejedl, Senior Vice President B2B & ICT at Deutsche Telekom.