Smart City Plaza:
Active
participation
In this 2,000 m
2
space, the organization re-
produced a city with various types of smart
solutions that contribute to improving the
lives of people, reduce the environmental
impact of human activities, and optimise
the quality of services.
The Board of Directors of Red Española de
Ciudades Inteligentes (RECI), with Íñigo de
la Serna, the mayor of Santander, chairing
the meeting, and whose members are the
mayors of the 25 municipalities that were
among its founders, met last 19 November
in Barcelona at the Smart City Expo World
Congress to review and approve the steps
taken by the Network’s five working groups:
FCC was one of the most relevant repre-
sentatives in this space, and, in addition to
urban fixtures (benches, waste bins, etc.),
also presented two major projects.
One of these was the Can Buxeres Park
in L´Hospitalet de Llobregat, where people
can receive information through an app on
the landmark buildings, the vegetation in
the park, and are also able to report inci-
dences to the city council in real time.
The other important project was the side-
loading waste collection and compacting
truck which runs on electricity when it per-
forms waste collection services and then a
RECl holds its annual board of directors’ meeting at
Smart City Expo 2013
•
Governance, Economy and Busi-
nesses.
• Social Innovation.
• Energy.
• Environment, Infrastructures and
Habitability.
• Urban mobility.
The most relevant one was the one relating
to the Governance, Economy and Business
group which considered new models of
administrative technical specifications for a
hybrid vehicle when travelling to and from
the treatment plants. This was certainly one
of the elements that attracted the most at-
tention. The truck is patented by FCC and
was developed by the team of Alfonso Gar-
Smart City in 2014 and also proposed wor-
king on an agreed definition of a Smart City
to submit it to AENOR’s sub-committee of
Indicators and Semantics.
Collaboration between the public and pri-
vate sectors was also stressed as essential
for the development of smart cities. The
legal framework, in this respect, should ne-
ver hamper this process; it should facilitate
new initiatives proposed by public adminis-
trations and private operators. To this pur-
pose, RECI has hired a major law firm to
develop a proposal that would modify the
