Smart Mobility Solutions Help Ostrow Wielkopolski Curb Pollution

The European Union is focused on curbing pollution and saving energy, adapting its policies to those goals. Following those guidelines, the Polish city of Ostrov Wielkopolski has focused many of its efforts on the protection of the environment, especially on improving air quality. To do that, the 72 ,000 resident municipality has taken simple steps like holding tree planting events and more complex ones like creating the first urban green energy network in Poland thanks to biomass fuels. As the city focuses on improving its mobility, a way they're using their biomass energy is to charge their electric fleet. that are needed and needed to live life. They were, firstly, on a very high level, and secondly, they were, as a big part of the natural environment. So, for example, we invest in zero -emisyny transport miejsk, electric buses, but, unfortunately, we also fight a little bit with... with a mentality that, unfortunately, impacts the perception of the residents that we need to go as close as possible, and the exit of 100 meters is already a problem. To encourage residents not to use their private cars as much, the city builds park and ride-like centers, where residents can leave their cars and either get on a public bike or a public bus. To make buses more attractive, SEPTA CIO Emily Yates told us in a previous video that there's a need to make the transport more reliable. To do that, some three years ago Ostrow Wielkopolski installed priority systems on its around 60 buses. if they are in their place and if they are in the middle of the signal, and when they are in the middle of the signal, the information is being used by the car. And when the bus is so much less in the signal, the signal is in the way to improve the weather. It's a radio of short distance, so the bus has a short distance signal and communicate with the signal. The bus provides the parameters of the signal, and the signal is local to take a decision. down congestion, the city is currently also working on the installation of a smart parking solution. They've chosen a ground sensor solution that can detect if a car is parked on top of it. They're deploying 1 ,000 battery -operated magnetic and radar sensors to monitor parking spots in the city center. For communication, they're deploying LoRaWAN. To deploy the network, they partnered up with Emitel, a terrestrial TV and radio broadcast infrastructure operator in public. Poland that also designs and installs wireless communication systems. The city will own the network, but Emitel will manage it and implement a system to handle the parking data. In the real time, we will have information about the number of free parking places. This information will be presented on 5 to 8 information tables. At this stage, it will be taken by the decision about the decision to search for the on the parking lot of the parking lot, and after the construction of the parking lot, they will be able to decide whether it should be to the center and look for parking, or rather parking on the border. The main goal of this solution is to curb congestion, but also pollution. Or, to implement these solutions that will guide us this path and show where the parking lot are. Obserwujemy, The drivers are running around the market looking for a free place. We think that this application will help not drive without sense and not emit CO2 to the environment, but it will be faster, healthier and healthier. Funding for the €350 ,000 Smart Parking scheme came from the Norway Grant. The European Economic Area or EEA and Norway grants are the fundings from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway that aim to reduce economic and social disparities and strengthen relations with 15 EU countries, among which is Poland. One of the main focuses of the EEA in the country is to curb CO2 emissions and improve energy efficiency, something we can see in Ostrov Velkopolsky as that's where efforts are going. This project is part of the EEA Ostrov 20. ecological energy economic city initiative in which the EEA and Norway grants gave Ostrov Jelkopolski over 3 million euros to invest in different projects including the modernization of the street lighting infrastructure the city has changed around 50 % of its street lights to LED also thanks to EU funds they want to continue to do so as they see the change to LED as an opportunity for future smart city solution deployment, they also see the LoRaWAN network as an investment for their smart city strategy. The city will continue to bet on mobility and energy sources in line with the grants as its next tender will be to purchase more electric buses and since they're one of five cities in Poland involved in a Hydrogen Valley project, they're looking to find out more about what can do with the energy source.