City of Nice Becomes Testing Ground for Connected Boulevard

The cities in the South of France are most famously known for the sun, blue seas and mega yachts, but the city of Nice will be able to claim being the first test site in the world for new street sensors. This platform will showcase the first Internet of Everything (IoE) proof-of-concept for a smart city, which is an extension of the Internet of Things (IoT).

The Connected Boulevard project has 200 sensors in the city created in collaboration with Cisco France, Semiacs, Siradel and the Think Global alliance: Citelum, Egis, Sude, Urbiotica; as well as Meteosim, Mappy, NextiraOne and GeekGaps.

Connected Boulevard is able to capture data from the daily life of the residents of Nice through a hybrid network infrastructure of the city which includes a Cisco Wi-Fi network. The data collected is processed in real-time and the intelligence is used with context-aware location analytics before it is used for different services throughout the city. This is an Internet- centric platform that is always-on, designed to be flexible, agile, resilient and extensible with four interoperable layers:

• Layer 1 – devices using mesh technology are integrated seamlessly as new products with new technology become available and the city demands new services
• Layer 2 – the gathering of data, processing, storage and analysis is distributed throughout the city, ensuring responsiveness in real-time, improving scalability
• Layer 3 – the data that is collected is integrated with open standard application programming interfaces (APIs) so open data readiness can be built
• Layer 4 – city managers, businesses and residents will have applications and services developed and integrated for them

This system and the data that it gathers 24 hours a day is processed and analyzed to give the residents context aware information on parking, traffic, street lighting, waste disposal and environmental quality in real-time.

When all the information gathered in the system is used as a comprehensive tool to improve the city, the result is lower traffic congestion, pollution reduction, lower energy usage and a more involved citizenry in the city.

Connected Boulevard will be able to coordinate parking services, synchronize and calibrate street lighting intensity so it can be adjusted to pedestrian traffic and provide a more accurate condition of the environment such as rain.

"Many more things are going to get connected between people, with and between objects, creating valuable interactions and processes including that of public administration. Our ability as a city to harness this data is crucial to understanding what's going on in real-time and to enhance a multitude of services for city-dwellers," said Christian Estrosi, mayor of Nice.

"Cisco would like to thank Nice for this unprecedented opportunity to deploy a real-life Internet of Everything-ready proof of concept at the city level. We are able, for the first time, to validate a multi-service, extensible IoE-ready network architecture in an urban context," said Anne Lange, Connected Boulevard lead and director of public sector innovation, Cisco Consulting Services.