Skip to main content

Santiago to award smart city projects in July

The metropolitan region government of Chile, which includes capital Santiago, expects to award tenders worth a total of US$1.6 million in July for five smart city projects. The government's fund for innovation in competitiveness is part of its smart city financing strategy and is aimed at generating proposals from universities, which have until the end of April to submit them, according to Metropolitan Region smart city plan coordinator Enzo Abbagliati. The strategy also includes private funding and r
April 13, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
The metropolitan region government of Chile, which includes capital Santiago, expects to award tenders worth a total of US$1.6 million in July for five smart city projects.

The government's fund for innovation in competitiveness is part of its smart city financing strategy and is aimed at generating proposals from universities, which have until the end of April to submit them, according to Metropolitan Region smart city plan coordinator Enzo Abbagliati.

The strategy also includes private funding and resources from other public entities. In the private sector, Spanish firms 509 Indra and 6883 Telefónica have already financed the installation of sensors in some parts of Santiago, which provide information for website that gives users real time information on how long their journey will take or how fast traffic is moving.

Abbagliati's team gave the universities a rough outline for each project, one being the idea of smart mobility. "We'll place sensors in a part of Santiago and that will generate open data that anyone can access and use to develop an app," he said.

Each project will be designed to span 18 months and they are expected to go live in December 2016.

The government is hoping that smart city projects like these will pay for themselves in terms of savings and therefore fully expects to continue investing. "We hope to put up a similar figure next year and run the contest annually," Abbagliati said.

Related Content

  • Standardise global ITS protocols to enable interoperability
    January 26, 2012
    ITS America has a new chief technology officer. ITS International caught up with Nu Rosenbohm at this year's World Congress to gather his thoughts on the main challenges at home and abroad
  • Phoenix rises to the Smart City challenge
    December 10, 2015
    Andrew Bardin Williams looks at the City of Phoenix where voters backed a $30bn plan to revamp its transportation network to cultivate a more connected community. According to a Land Use Institute study, half of all Americans and even more millennials (63%) would like to live in a place where they do not need to use a car very often. The City of Phoenix is putting in place plans to revamp its urban development and transportation policies to meet these changing quality of life perceptions.
  • The future of ITS post recession
    January 25, 2012
    ACS, A Xerox Company's Cees de Wijs talks about post-recession recovery and what we might expect to see in the coming years
  • Virtual traffic management centres, a new direction in traffic monitoring
    January 30, 2012
    David Crawford picks up a new direction trend in traffic monitoring The surprise winner in the Traffic Management Centre (TMC) category of the recently-announced 2011 OSMOSE (Open Source for MObile and SustainablE city) Awards for European innovations in urban transport, is the Danish city of Aalborg - which doesn't have a TMC. Alternatively, one might consider its 'virtual' TMC as a signpost for the future in medium-sized cities.