Skip to main content

Madrid and IBM partner on smarter cities project

The City of Madrid and IBM, through its subsidiary INSA, have announced the start of a ‘smart city’ project, designed to improve city life for Madrid’s three million inhabitants. The contract, with an estimated value of approximately US$20 million, will IBM’s Smarter Cities technology, including Big Data and analytics, to transform the city’s supplier management model, allowing the city to manage and pay each service provider based on service levels in an effort to improve the management of public servi
July 10, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
The City of Madrid and 62 IBM, through its subsidiary INSA, have announced the start of a ‘smart city’ project, designed to improve city life for Madrid’s three million inhabitants.

The contract, with an estimated value of approximately US$20 million, will IBM’s smarter Cities technology, including Big Data and analytics, to transform the city’s supplier management model, allowing the city to manage and pay each service provider based on service levels in an effort to improve the management of public services such as street maintenance, lighting, irrigation, trees and green spaces, cleaning and garbage and waste management.

Madrid is one of the five most populated municipalities in Europe, producing one million tons of household waste and using some 15 million Cubic meters of water every year. The city also manages and tracks numerous assets including 1.7 million vehicles, more than 252,000 street lights and 287,000 trees that are cared for by the city.

The city will begin using an innovative technology platform called Madrid iNTeligente (MiNT) – smarter Madrid which will help improve quality of services, communications with citizens, anticipate issues and coordinate resources. By using smart phones, tablets other Mobile Devices and social media, it is expected citizens will be able to instantly communicate with the city about issues such as broken traffic signals or pot holes, receive instant feedback and track progress or the status of an event or issue.

“This project will serve as an example for other European capital cities which will be able to follow Madrid´s model as the first European capital with comprehensive public services integration, ” said Marta Martínez, general manager for IBM Spain, Portugal, Greece and Israel. “We are proud that the City of Madrid has relied on IBM Group for this innovative initiative.”

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Kapsch and Autofind partner on vehicle tracking solutions
    April 28, 2014
    Kapsch TrafficCom and UHF Gen 2 RFID solutions supplier Autofind Industrial have formed a strategic partnership with the aim of jointly providing end-to-end solutions for SINIAV (Sistema de Identificação Automática de Veículos), Brazil’s national electronic vehicle registration program.
  • Auckland upgrades transport services
    July 15, 2013
    To cater to the needs of the growing population of the city of Auckland, New Zealand, Auckland Transport has adopted technology solutions from Microsoft’s new initiative, CityNext to upgrade the city’s transportation services and core infrastructure. CityNext offers cities a broad portfolio of technology solutions such as business software, devices and apps, cloud solutions, and big data platforms, from Microsoft and its partners to help city governments overcome urbanisation and governance challenges in ar
  • Pollution foiled by foliage
    November 22, 2022
    Living walls provide an innovative solution for reducing air pollution and improving air quality along congested urban highways. Richard Sabin, managing director of Biotecture, explains how
  • EarthSense app to identify clean air routes for UK cyclists
    August 14, 2018
    UK-based air quality specialists EarthSense is developing an app which will identify and map clean air routes for people cycling or exercising. The company says the application could also help wider clean air strategies when combined with population movement data. According to EarthSense, collating this data would allow key decision makers to identify popular exercise routes and target resources to improve air quality at these locations. The app is being funded by the European Space Agency's grant p