The residents of Lagoa already have the solution of many of the problems they detect in their municipality at their fingertips. Through the City Council website, accessed by computer, tablet or mobile phone, citizens – and even visitors and tourists – can now report, quickly and effectively, any problem or issue that they consider to be bad or in need of intervention.
A water leak, full containers, a dead or abandoned animal, a hole in the road, the lack of a traffic light, a sidewalk needing to be repaved, a poorly maintained garden, works that never end, public lighting without working, are just some of the issues that can be reported.
This is just the most visible face, for the general public, of the first “Smart City” Control Center in the Algarve, which had its official opening yesterday, in Lagoa.
Located in the Municipal Park of Feiras da Fatacil, this Control Center is in permanent operation with specialized technicians from the municipality, collecting sensing data (for example, regarding the condition of waste containers), as well as situations reported by citizens.
These data, after being collected, analyzed and forwarded to the respective municipal services, initiate resolution processes through the online platform made available for this purpose.
Francisco Martins, Mayor of Lagoa, stressed that «increasingly the municipal management must be felt and shared by all», so this new tool made available to Lagoa residents is an important step in this direction.
“People will have a tool in their hand and the option to participate” in solving the problems of their land. Or they can continue to "close their eyes" or "go to Facebook to complain," added the mayor, ironically.
“I challenge the entire population to participate in the exploration of this instrument”, said Francisco Martins.
For his part, Tiago Silva Ribeiro, Director of Corporate Business Development at NOS, the partner company of Câmara de Lagoa, underlined that «this is the first milestone that materializes the exchange of experiences and joint initiatives» that this project has allowed.
«Smart Cities projects are always very complicated» and have to be developed almost according to the needs of each municipality. "Technology alone does not solve everything", it is necessary to take into account "the dynamics of each municipality, its main challenges", he added.
Rui Mesquita, the Lagoa Council's IT engineer responsible for coordinating the project, explained in the Control Room that, first, it was necessary to integrate all the information about the municipality, namely that provided by the GIS service, as well as including it and integrate it into a single map. On this online map, only accessible to City Hall services, all water and sewage pipes, the road network, fire hydrants, recycling bins and waste containers, public lighting, municipal green spaces, among other issues are marked. under municipal responsibility.
One of the advantages of this system will be, soon, the possibility of reducing the percentage of water lost in the public supply network in Lagoa, since the breaks will be communicated, in real time, to the Control Center, thus allowing for a more efficient performance. fast and effective municipal services.
But it will also bring other financial benefits to the Municipality, as this intelligent digital monitoring system in real time “will have an added importance in financial management, with the profitability of resources, both material and human”, as President Francisco Martins said.
Available to the public, on the Câmara de Lagoa website, but integrated in this Smart City system, there is already an application (app), which can be downloaded to the mobile phone or tablet, with the walking routes available throughout the territory of Lagos. And, integrating this public information, with that which is only available for municipal services, as demonstrated in the opening session, it is possible to see where the existing ecopoints are located along the 7 Valleys Route, for example, and to assess whether it will be necessary to reinforce in some area… and how to get a collection truck there.
Rui Mesquita, talking about the next uses of the Smart City system in Lagoa, gave the example of creating an app for Rota do Petisco. “It bothers me to walk around with that passport in hand, looking for the location of the restaurants, sometimes you can't even see them on the maps they provide. But with an app, which people can download from our website, the problem will be solved».
For now, the possibility for citizens to report anomalous situations they encounter in the municipality is the most visible feature of this new Smart City Control Center in Lagoa. “Citizens now have a direct channel, through which they can tell us the problems”, stressed Rui Mesquita.
The Control Center inaugurated yesterday is just the "seed" of what will happen in the future, President Francisco Martins had already said. In the future, «it is expected that monitoring and reporting will extend to a network of sensors spread across the county, optimizing the interaction between the municipality and citizens, in favor of more participatory and efficient communication and resource management, promoting mobility , safety and accessibility”, explain the project promoters.
For now, and because the Algarve wants to assert itself as a “smart region”, in other words, a smart region, the project developed by NOS and the Câmara de Lagoa is already arousing the interest of other Algarve municipalities, namely those of Lagos, Faro and Loulé, whose technicians have already visited or are going to visit the Lagoense Smart City Control Center.
It is that, despite the discussion on the subject and the Algarve Intermunicipal Community (AMAL) promoted, last May, a major seminar on this topic at the Autódromo do Algarve, so far just pond and the Vale do Lobo development, this at a smaller geographic scale, have already launched effective online management and participation tools within the scope of smart cities.
Tiago Silva Ribeiro did not reveal, in a conversation with journalists, which local authorities could follow Lagoa in implementing this project, but he stressed the importance of having "case studies" that could serve as an example.
How can I register and participate?
First go to the website www.cm-lagoa.pt, then on the right side, a little below, click on “Occurrences|Smart City” (if you access it from your mobile phone, slide your finger until you see the same reference below). You will then access the Smart City portal.
Then register on the icon in the upper right corner, by logging in, with email and telephone number, password, tax number and saying that you are not a robot…and here is a less successful detail of this access. Is that, to confirm that the user is a real person and not an internet robot, he has to answer a question…which appears in English. To the reporter of Sul Informação, to make the initial registration, he was asked to click on images that showed “store fronts”, that is, shop windows. And who doesn't understand English, how is it?
Continuing: after registering for the first time, the following times you only need to enter your email or telephone number and the password chosen by you and login.
With this registration made (or with the entry confirmed), access an area where you can click on Events and register what you consider to be communicated to the competent services of the Chamber, or click on Participatory Budget or Beachcams (and here, call to attention for the misspelling in English – beachcams, plural of beachcam, meaning “cameras on the beaches”, it is written without any apostrophes. It's beachcams. ).
Clicking on Occurrences, which is what interests us here, opens a map of Lagoa, indicating the area where we are (if we wish). At the bottom, click on «+Nova Ocurrence» and then fill in the request and place up to three photos, which may have been taken with your mobile phone.
After sending it, you will receive a message registering your participation and, later, information about the evolution of the reported problem, until its predictable and desirable resolution.
Photos: Elisabete Rodrigues|Sul Informação
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