The LiveYpsonas platform, developed by an Italian SME, aims to transform Ypsonas into a smart city and will bring many benefits like the reduction of traffic congestion and C02 emissions; improvement of city services thanks to the Open Data analysis; and a better quality of life for citizens

Ypsonas is the second largest industrialised municipality of Cyprus, with 30,000 inhabitants. Due to the relatively cheap land and easy access to the highway it has become a highly attractive place to live, especially for young people in the last couple of years.
While its rapid development and increasing number of visitors have been welcomed by the municipality and local business owners alike, the community of long-term residents has been negatively affected by increased traffic and public transport issues.
That’s why the municipality launched a challenge through the Social Challenges Innovation Platform seeking solutions to improve the public transport service and parking accessibility.
Among the 10 different solutions received, the best one came from Italy. To morph Ypsonas into a smart city, IEENG Solutions developed an open data platform (LiveYpsonas) using low-cost microcontroller boards equipped with sensors. Thanks to such infrastructure, it is possible to collect data and information for designing advanced services for citizens.
IEENG installed sensors in the city to provide real-time data on public transport routes, parking availability and waste. In other words, thanks to this project citizens can find free parking spaces more easily, see where the bus is in real-time; and gauge how full a garbage bin might be. Moreover, citizens can also send alerts or suggestions to the municipality, so this tool will also improve the communication stream between citizens and the city authority.

The web application is designed for use by the municipality, and through this app the staff can access the sensor’s outputs, manage users, show statistics from collected data and answer the alerts sent by citizens.

                        
Web application                                                                                               mobile app 

Citizens access information through a mobile application, and they can message the municipality directly with pictures of issues in the city.

Technology

The devices depend on three types of sensors:
• Position sensors. Through these it will be possible to view the geographical position of public transport moving in the city and also know the waiting time to reach the next bus stop;
• Ultrasonic sensors will be used to determine the level of the garbage bins in order to warn bin collectors. This will help to streamline the bin collection service and and organise it in the best way possible;
• Proximity sensors detect the vehicle density within parking lots, and a reservation system helps to avoid wasting time looking for parking spaces.

The LiveYpsonas platform aims to transform Ypsonas into a smart city and will bring many benefits like the reduction of traffic congestion and C02 emissions; improvement of city services thanks to the Open Data analysis; and a better quality of life for citizens. An Italian SME found the ideal solution to Ypsona’s most pressing issue, and all thanks to the Innovation Platform!

This solution about to be implemented in Ypsonas, and it is highly scalable and can be rolled out to other cities. And if your city is addressing other kind of problems, don’t forget that you can access the finest international entrepreneurship minds and find innovative solutions to your community's challenges with the Innovation Platform!

Written by Pablo Munilla for Social Challenges Innovation Platform

Waste sensor          Tracking vehicle sensor