Indra, Altia, R Qand Ilux develop in A coruña (spain) the first comprehensive Government Platform for a Smart City

The consortium, comprised by the multinational consulting and technology firm Indra, Altia, the Galician operator R and Ilux Visual Technologies, will develop in A Coruña (Galicia-Spain) the first comprehensive government platform for a ‘smart city’ in Spain. It is also emerging as one of the pioneering initiatives in the world in terms of implementation and extent of the areas incorporated.The initiative represents the launch of the “Smart Coruña” project, which has been conceived with the objective of improving the quality of life of residents as well as the financial and business environment through technological innovation, positioning the Galician city as a management reference for cities of the future.

The temporary joint venture will be responsible for the design, supply, installation and configuration of all the computer equipment and software infrastructures that comprise the “Smart Coruña” platform. It will also define and establish the Technical Project Office, which is the entity responsible for the consultancy and supervision of the project, along with its technical, administrative and strategic control.

The “Smart Coruña” platform will serve as a basis for managing and integrating all the smart services and solutions that comprise a city's ecosystem in areas such as the environment, energy, urban mobility, healthcare, safety, leisure, tourism and e-administration. This great management centre will assist the various systems to exchange information in order to offer a comprehensive overview of activities. It will also include analysis tools to plot behaviour in the city (residents, facilities, traffic, etc.) with regard to the use of services in order to adapt these to real needs.

As the phase prior to fully implementing the smart services on this platform, there will be a partial roll-out of a pilot that covers approximately 5% of the city.

European technological R&D developments

The platform is based on the results obtained in the SOFIA (Smart Objects For Intelligent Applications) European R&D&i programme, in which Indra has been actively involved. It consists of an open-source middleware service integration project based on semantic web technology, interoperability and smart sensor networks for implementing domotics in cities, buildings and vehicles, as well as providing personalised smart services via mobile devices.

It is expected to promote the use of this type of device as a means for communicating with residents, creating an attainable and immediate digital environment that will also serve as a medium for providing ‘smart’ services, making citizen involvement one of the keys to urban management. As a result, this could translate into access for services such as guided tours via augmented reality, notifications in the event of an emergency or sharing ideas aimed at improving certain parts of the city, among others.

The Galician operator R will make available to the urban platform its modern fibre optic network, which already covers 97% of property units in A Coruña, and allow information (data about specific services or areas) to be collected thanks to the more than 2,200 sensor hub connection points installed throughout the city. It will also provide its direct backbone Internet connection and various platforms for integrating multimedia content in order to access “Smart City” services.

Altia will be responsible for integrating the software architecture in order to guarantee the platform's interoperability with municipal systems as well as with other new technologies and devices. It will also develop the Open Data technologies that will enable the City Government to make available the information it has about all the actors of society so it may be used to create services and develop applications that complement those offered by the municipal administration.

Lastly, ILUX Visual Technologies will carry out the development tasks for the tridimensional and interactive ground visualisation system and the integration of geolocalised information updated in real time about various aspects of the city (environment, energy, mobility and emergencies, among others). Its developments will become the visible head of Smart Coruña's comprehensive command and control centre, designed to centralise all the management needs of the information generated throughout the city and the specific posts destined to be used by residents.

The “Smart Coruña” programme is the result of an agreement between the municipal administration and the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. The programme is endowed with a global budget of €11.5 million and is 70% financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Operative R+D+I Programme for the benefit of companies–Technological Fund to be carried out in the period 2012–2014. The objective is to equip the city of A Coruña with high added value services that make it possible to increase the well-being of residents through an intensive use of ICT in order to incorporate intelligence in the city's systems and processes, achieving better management that is more efficient.

About Indra

Indra is the leading Spanish multinational consulting and technology firm and one of the main players in Europe and Latin America. Innovation is the cornerstone of its business and sustainability, having allocated more than €550 million to R&D&i in the last three years, making it one of the leading companies in Europe in its sector in terms of investment. With sales approaching €3,000 million, nearly 60% of its income is from the international market. The company employs 42,000 professionals and has customers in 128 countries.

About R

R, the Galician fibre optic communications operator, has been rolling out its own network in Galicia for more than a decade, working from street to street, and today it offers residents the most advanced landline, high-speed Internet, multi-channel interactive digital television (for which it is a leader in the areas where it competes) and mobile phone services. The company currently has more than 300,000 customers, it is present in nearly 90 towns or cities, and it has invested €900 million in this project for Galicia. Additional information is available at www.mundo-r.com

About Altia

Founded in 1994, Altia operates in the field of Information and Communication Technology consultancy. In 2010, it became the first Galician company to be traded on the Mercado Alternativo Bursátil (MAB) stock exchange, which marked a qualitative change within the company's growth policy as it had always based its development model on the commitment to service and customers. Altia's operations are primarily focused on providing solutions that make it possible to improve the productivity, quality, service and results of its customers, linked to all the economic activity sectors such as banking, telecommunications, industry, services and the public sector.

About ILUX

ILUX Visual Technologies is a technology-based company from A Coruña that offers smart solutions for specific needs, using proprietary products for viewing and managing geopositioned data. Since the company's creation, and with a strong innovative spirit in all its developments, it has commercialised solutions for administrations, businesses and cultural entities linked to 3D visualisation applied to architecture, environmental impact, tourism and virtual recreations, with a line of management products tied to representing the region in three dimensions. Additional information is available at www.ilux.es