City of Eindhoven, Netherlands

Eindhoven is the centre of the “Brainport Region”, today one of the three top economic engines of The Netherlands, delivering about 14% of the national GDP. The Dutch consortium consists of five partners: VolkerWessels, Woonbedrijf, TU/e (Technische Universiteit Eindhoven), KPN and the Municipality of Eindhoven.

Living Labs

In Eindhoven, two districts are being transformed into sustainable living environments during the course of the project. The former Philips industrial complex in the “Strijp-S” neighbourhood becomes a creative smart district. An innovative concept to clean up contaminated land doubles as a means of producing energy. A district-wide ICT solution allows residents to access different kinds of infrastructure, such as booking electric vehicles from a district car sharing scheme or using smart parking concepts. In this way, the IT-based tool will help residents to develop sustainable patterns of energy and mobility behaviour.

A different set of challenges is posed by the Eckart Vaartbroek district, where energy-efficiency renovations are carried out on the social housing stock that predominates in this area. In order to precisely calculate energy savings, the project used an IT-based instrument capable of modelling costs and yield in a 3D visualisation of the district.

Local Activities

Partner Volker Wessels is, as most partners, involved in more than one project. One of them is the backbone. The backbone is a system of complex hardware and software that monitors and controls street lighting, mobility, houses, offices, etc. of the ‘smart city’. The backbone makes it possible to monitor and control the innovative lighting installations of Light-S (smart street lighting system). This advanced network also enables an app for smarter parking management and a smart charging station. In addition, they’re involved in a soil sanitation-project together with sustainable energy supply and a new connection to the newly build biomass power station.

Partner Woonbedrijf is leading in the renovation process of 195 town-houses. Moreover, in close cooperation with KPN, they want to report on the progress and intermediate conclusions drawn out of the first implementation of the WoonConnect tool in the retrofitting process. The municipality of Eindhoven took the lead in a Smart lighting project around a pond in Eckart Vaartbroek and they developed a smart running route to improve quality of life.

Impact

The Triangulum project is only meaningful as far as the consortium manages to show the benefits achieved.

Key measurables are:

– Significant increase of joint ownerships in Smart City Eindhoven among users. Citizens and other relevant actors will be engaged in the process of investing into Eindhoven as a Smart City

– New, smarter way of working of the city administration that allows true integration of Smart City aims and objectives within and outside the municipal organisation

– The implementation of innovative energy saving technologies that will reduce energy bills and limit CO2 emissions with a factor three (67%)

– Data infrastructure and sensor network got a boost, when the open data platform further facilitates smart city developments

– People know they’ve been consulted and projects are being implemented in co-creation

– A sustainable transformation of public space has been undertaken, and housing is still affordable

– Uptake of smart solutions and a redefining of quality of life