INTELLIGENT BENCHES AND WASTE BASKETS: BERGAMO IS GETTING SMARTER
Bergamo, 5 April 2019 – You go to the park, sit down and attach your phone to the electricity socket: all with great ease, putting an end to those frenetic searches.
The installation of the city’s first intelligent benches began on Wednesday, 21 November. A project eagerly sought by the Bergamo Administration (and especially the Director of Innovation, Giacomo Angeloni) in order to create – thanks to the work of A2A Smart City – smart, digital oases in the city’s districts, alongside the implementation of the city’s public Wi-Fi, a model infrastructure of its kind in our country.
The digital islands were created in 7 different sites of the city by A2A Smart City: intelligent benches were mostly installed in the districts of the city’s southern belt, such as - for example – Celadina, next to the Hobbit space; in Via Gandhi, Boccaleone, next to the youth centre; in Piazza Aquileia in Grumello del Piano; in Malpensata park (the complete list is given at the bottom of the page). These are very special seats with electricity sockets for charging electronic devices, from smartphones to tablets, and even a workstation for smart working.
“This is a much more wide-ranging project,” explained Bergamo Municipality’s Director of Innovation, Giacomo Angeloni, "that includes various new developments in the city's districts. There are three areas of intervention: in parks and squares, third age centres (which will be equipped with optical fibre) and then socio-cultural centres, youth centres and civic halls, in as many as seven districts, from Celadina to Malpensata, from Colognola to Carnovali, from Boccaleone to Grumello del Piano and Campagnola. Through this project, we are building a city truly in step with the times and with digital technologies, building an infrastructure that follows in the wake of this Administration’s inauguration of Bergamo Wi-Fi.”
These smart benches are known as Panka Teslas and they can detect the presence of a citizen, activating a series of light sequences. They are supplied through the “Pila”, a sturdy column that is also equipped with 8 USB ports for charging devices, two of which have Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 technology for faster charging. All strictly low voltage. Two of these 9 Pila will also be provided with Tecatech, a special alarmed case for automatic external defibrillator (AED) with patented tear-off opening. In conclusion, each digital island will be made up of 1 Pila and 2 Panka Tesla.
Not only benches: the Municipality, in collaboration with A2A Smart City, will complete the digital oases with digital information towers, on the displays of which it will be possible to find out the latest news about the city, and waste baskets with sensors that can transmit to Aprica the level of waste in the bags. The latter is a useful initiative for saving CO2, given that the firm that disposes of waste in Bergamo estimates it will save more than 300 km in trips for the removal of the bags from the waste baskets. Once the project has been completed, the number of BergamoWi-Fi hotspots in the city will rise from 123 to 222, while the overall number of smart waste baskets installed will be around 150.
“For A2A Smart City,” explained Marco Moretti, Chief Executive Office of A2A Smart City, “being the partner in such an important project as Bergamo Wi-Fi Digital Islands is an important stage in the process of dialogue on innovation and the future of cities, undertaken with many of the most important cities, that sees us playing a leading role in smart city and smart district projects. It is of particular significance that, in this specific case, the targets are the peripheral districts which, thanks to digital interventions, are being included, through innovation, in the future of the city.”
The project: https://issuu.com/francescoalleva/docs/pres_progettowifi
Francesco Alleva
Portavoce del Sindaco
Palazzo Frizzoni – P.zza Matteotti,27
24121 Bergamo
tel. 035 399.156 – mobile 329 1749814
E-mail: francescoalleva@comune.bg.it
website: http://www.comune.bergamo.it
Fabrizio Orlandi
A2A S.p.a.
Local Institutional Relations Manager
Brescia and Bergamo Area
Via Lamarmora, 230 – 25124 Brescia
T [+39] 030 3554990 335 6860345
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