Eindhoven to create world’s first ‘crowdsourced’ smart city

The Dutch city of Eindhoven is introducing participatory planning that will allow its residents to be part of a new 15-year smart city project.

Called, ‘Roadmap Urban Lighting Eindhoven 2030’, it includes the development of new lighting applications in public spaces, such as connected LED street lighting, and the maintenance and management of public lighting in the municipality. The consortium starts work in the autumn of 2016 in five selected pilot areas across the city.

City officials believe many of the issues raised by voters can be addressed through lighting itself or via smart technology delivered through the lighting infrastructure. One of the partners of the project, Philips Lighting, believes that technology like connected street lighting in combination with other smart systems, sensors and intelligence will turn the lighting infrastructure into an information highway that will enable numerous other benefits and services for residents.

“We see Eindhoven as a true pioneer in what we see as an evolutionary path towards transformation into a smart city,” said Frank van der Vloed, Market Leader, Philips Lighting Benelux. “Public lighting is closely interwoven with a city’s infrastructure. In addition to light it represents a ready digital platform for acquiring and sharing information and services that provide real value to the citizens.”

According to Philips, this added value may include enabling lighting to guide emergency services accurately to incidents or within metres of individuals in need. Alternatively, smart sensors in each LED luminaire may be utilised to adapt the lighting to weather conditions or provide light on demand when people are on the streets at night to improve safety.

Other partnerships have been formed with the Technical University of Eindhoven (TU/e), and Heijmans, a Dutch company that specialises in developing roads infrastructure, civil engineering and non-residential buildings.

“Citizens want a say in the smart city services provided to them and the city of Eindhoven plans to involve them, so that the smart city is built from the ground up,” added van der Vloed.

The launch comes on the back of a new study by the Economist Intelligence Unit on ‘Empowering Cities’ that finds there is more demand for further citizen engagement. Although digital technologies facilitate the ‘crowdsourced city’ the study reveals that more than six in 10 people think governments are not investing enough in digital technologies to create smart cities.