2018: FLORENCE PILOT

2018

Newsletter Florence Replicate 2017

CASCINE/NOVOLI/LE PIAGGE DISTRICT INSIGHTS

An integrated strategy aiming at implementing the Smart City Plan in a smart district to be replicated and scaled up at metropolitan level. The area has been selected because of:

Mix of uses: industrial settlements dismissed (ex Fiat, Manifattura Tabacchi) and tertiary activities (University campus, Justice Court, Merca¬rfir wholesale chain market, …)
residential area: 5000 m2 constructed area/6000 buildings
Novoli urban park close to Cascine, the biggest park of the city
Relevance for the mobility sector: city’s new entrance, transport infrastructures (airport, stations, highway, tramlines under construction, mix mode parking lots, bike paths, …).

Towards an eco district: taking care of the environment and to city users thanks to the innovation. The process will be implemented integrating the three technological areas (energy, e- mobility and ICT) exploiting synergies.

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INTERVIEWS

Energy

Mathema

Mathema’s contribution in the project refers to gamification of energy consumption to change citizens behavior, app to manage the fast recharging network for taxi drivers (localization, availability, reservation of the stations).

Mobility

Comune di Firenze

Firenze will deploy a set of smart mobility solutions in the area of Cascine, Novoli and Le Piagge supported by E-distribuzione.

ICT & Infrastructure

UNIFI

UNIFI collaborates for new ICT model for Smart City, through the support for a development of a technological platform under Cloud Computing philosophy and open source, aided by Silfi (a third party company).

Question: What Energy action have you been developing for the Replicate project?

Answer: “The 2018 is the year of deployment: the smart district pilot is enter in reality. The Final project of the energy efficiency retrofitting and district heating is now ready: after closing the public tender for the insulation of the buildings (first phase of the project), 21 technical and economic offers were presented and evaluated according to the European and national rules.

Two buildings, 300 dwellings, 700 people: these are the numbers that the energy efficiency public works, starting with the insulation, involve. But it is needed to be aware about the right behaviour to have a real smart house: we need smart people. To help to be sustainable, smart Info are going to be deployed for 600 homes to get aware about the electric consumption and have the opportunity to monitor in real time and a specific app for consumers is going to be realized. Apartments at Le Piagge have been visited, where the first Smart Info deployment is foreseen and the energy app is being tested and its operational use is expected by the summer, allowing to account directly the electric data from the smart info of those who decide to register.

The app whose “energy hero” is the main character of a game, provides “coins” for withdrawing prizes and is open to all those who want to learn while having fun. The new EU discipline imposes a different approach in the processing of personal data, provides new requirements and, based on the new rules, a mandatory update is started, taking into account also the energy data resulting from the smart info and their treatment in the app.”

Question: What positive impacts have these actions achieved and what benefitial outcomes do you foresee in the future?

Answer: “The aim of the energy actions is to develop an energy efficiency system that allowed to saving consumptions and saving energy bills for tenants thanks to retrofitting and thermal seasonal energy storage, that is serving an area of 20000m2 of intervention. Public works is needed but additional services for city users are needed too to ensure the results and to promote the correct behaviour in all the houses of the city: tools as smart info and energy app for citizenship are needed to give clear information about domestic consumption enabling the customer to increase awareness and knowledge on how they are consuming and become smarter.”

Question: What Mobility action have you been developing for the Replicate project?

Answer: “On track to the zero emission urban mobility: this is one of the target of the smart city plan of Florence and e-mobility is a priority. The actions of the project are strategic in the roadmap of the city towards the Sustainable Development Goals. 6 superfast recharging stations have been put in place: 2 more than what previously planned in the project, because of the high demand by e-taxi driver associations and due to the number of e-taxi already circulating in the city (now 74).

Moreover, the app for taxi recharging management system is being evaluated for updates together with taxi drivers. A technical report on main standards for charging stations of electric vehicles and hybrid plug-in was developed to define the next tendering process for another 40 recharging stations.”

Question: What positive impacts have these actions achived and what benefitial outcomes do you foresee in the future?

Answer: “Transport network modernization is the strategy of the city: a set of push-pull actions are provided to reduce the Co2 emissions, the PM10 emissions and the private vehicle use, especially the traditional/thermic one.

The public transport needs to be improved and reinforces, with special reference to electrical one as the taxi fleet or the tramway system, in order to be considered the natural choice by city users. This will improve the quality of life of citizens in terms of sustainability and liveability and able to make a more efficient energy use in the transport sector, even the private one thanks to the public multi-vendor recharging stations.”

Question: What ICT action have you been developing for the Replicate project?

Answer: Beside the ICT draft smart city platform that has been started and allows the data center to test the functionalities at city level, IoT applications have been deployed. A smart waste testing has been done in Santa Maria Novella square, new smart benches equipped with sensors and functionalities will be placed at the Cascine park after the first installed and in use at the Museum of 900, the final project of the smart irrigation has been defined for launching the tendering process.

Additionally, two digital location of TIM city link have been placed: it is an innovative example of urban infrastructures that combines the traditional public telephony cabins with new digital technologies. Public services, beside phone calls, are provided by the TIM city link i.e. transport information, event in the city, wi-fi and video surveillance. The public tender for the purchase of led lights is now closed, the contractor already selected and the replacement of traditional lights with led is in progress.

In total, the positioning of 30,000 LED lights is planned, of which 1000 as project objective. After the LTZ, public selection is now underway for light video surveillance systems as an added value of the smart lighting system together with wifi and sensors.”

Question: What positive impacts have these actions achieved and what benefitial outcomes do you foresee in the future?

Answer: “ICT and technologies are the amazing tool that permit us to achieve better and faster a city really smart: make the city easier for citizens and city users, make the decision makers and the managers able to get feedback on real time on what is going in the city and have the opportunity to make people as an active and fundamental actor of the development of the place we lives giving services when they want and where they need is the real benefit of the city of tomorrow working today.

Thanks to technologies we are able to put together services and achieve more results: the lamppost is a perfect example. It is not just a question of led system: not only less co2 emissions (-12.000tco2/year totally), less consumption and less expenses (-40% for the total project) and less trouble shouting but also benefit of road safety, increasing the possibility, for those driving and moving at night, to better distinguish obstacles and road signs and Keep all lights on overnight and new tools for environmental or acoustic monitoring of the city and new services to citizens (wifi, security, etc.) thanks to the “sockets” (connection points) present on each luminaire.”