Artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and advanced software to transform Genoa into the most advanced smart city in Italy.
The Smart City Genova project, dedicated to Smart Mobility, was presented this morning in the Sala Trasparenza of the Liguria Region. The project has been developed by Movyon, the technology, innovation, research and development company of the Autostrade per l’Italia Group, together with the Municipality of Genoa, Liguria Digitale and other partners, with the aim of planning and applying new urban planning strategies and new operational mobility management methods, developing and delivering innovative services dedicated both to citizens and to the municipality and, more generally, to the public administration.
The project’s mission includes, among many other objectives, the reduction of pollution and congestion in the Genoese area, guaranteeing equal access to services for all citizens and encouraging the use of public transport, electric vehicles and sharing mobility.
The Smart City project provides for the creation of a ‘data-driven’ system capable of acquiring data from the territory through IoT (Internet of Things) technologies and processing the collected data with artificial intelligence techniques, in order to make advanced services available to citizens – such as traffic forecasts following events and interruptions and the availability of free parking spaces in real time – and to the public administration punctual information and decision support systems, accessible within technological control rooms.
Smart City Genova is part of a broader programme that is divided into three project areas for urban and port mobility: Project Smart City Genova, Project Mobility as a Service (MaaS) and Project Smart Logistics, dedicated to port logistics.
‘What we saw today,’ said Liguria Region President Giovanni Toti, ’shows how technology can increasingly help us to guide strategic planning choices as well. Smart City Genova can be the starting point for extending the smart city concept to the rest of the territory and offering increasingly innovative digital services to everyone. We have asked Liguria Digitale to enhance everything that, in terms of innovation, has already been done in the area, both by the Region and the Municipality of Genoa. Systemic projects such as this one give institutions the opportunity to involve a number of players in the area in order to synthesise and make the most of every good practice available and, at the same time, encourage local induced activities’.
‘We are happy to be a partner in this project, which will help us transform Genoa into a true smart city,’ says Genoa City Councillor for Integrated Mobility, Transport and Environment Matteo Campora. New technologies, from digitisation to data analytics, are changing the way services are delivered to citizens and companies, making them more efficient from an operational and environmental standpoint. Mobility, in particular, is undergoing great transformations and can set a positive example for all other economic and social domains. Reducing traffic congestion, facilitating the use of public transport, and favouring sharing mobility are objectives and, at the same time, essential tools for achieving the ecological transition process: thanks to more careful collection, management and processing of data, it is possible to offer greater opportunities for the well-being of individuals and for the development of public and private organisations.’
‘We are proud to provide our expertise for a unique project that aims to revolutionise the mobility and liveability of the city of Genoa, to make it the most evolved Smart City in Italy, and at the same time a national laboratory of excellence,’ explains Sabino Titomanlio, Business Director of Movyon. ‘The mission is to develop an integrated vision of the city that, through an open platform, uses artificial intelligence to manage large amounts of data, and innovative and easy-to-use services, enables the benefits expected by citizens and the administration to be achieved: reducing pollution and congestion, encouraging the use of collective transport, stimulating shared and soft mobility, guaranteeing equity of access to services, and enhancing the urban fabric, historical, architectural and landscape heritage.’
‘This project,’ adds Riccardo Battaglini, director of Liguria Digitale’s PA and Market business unit, ’concerns above all Smart Mobility and is one of the most important pieces that will make up the Smart City. Liguria Digitale is pooling infrastructures, from the data centre to the network. One of the objectives of the collaboration is to allow Movyon to enhance what has already been done in the area and, subsequently, to make what has been produced for the city available to the Region, the other municipalities, and the port system authorities.”