The utility of Smart Cities in Romania

Nowadays, the online environment and digital solutions play an important role in transforming cities into smart cities, and it is necessary to invest in updating services to the new needs of citizens.

Using an innovative program, carried out in partnership with a telecommunications operator, Alba Iulia is the first city in the country where progress in the transformation process will take place.

The transformation involved the creation of wi-fi hotspots in public places, intelligent traffic solutions at the vehicle level, communication solutions with residents through the “E-Alba Iulia” application, the supervision and efficiency of pedestrian traffic and transport, estimation applications of air quality, tourism promotion and citizen interaction applications, public lighting management solutions, smart management of public water systems, ensuring internet access, “citizen alert” applications, digital training.

Similar projects have been implemented in other cities such as Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Oradea, Sibiu, Constanța, but at the commune level there are currently not enough budgets to apply such a complex solution, where more measures are needed simple things like creating wi-fi hotspots, online fine payment sites or solutions, submitting documents and applications online.

Instead, cities faced major difficulties in updating and supporting long-term growth, such as degraded urban transport, reorganization of conservative economic sectors under innovation pressure, environmental change and pollution, dwindling energy resources and rising energy tariffs, the availability and quality of resources and utilities, emphasizing the importance of citizens’ safety, waste management, accessing resources, reducing local public administration budgets and dependence on central budgets, which limit the progress of local institutions’ projects.

Intelligent solutions propose the use of technology to address these challenges, a concept called Smart City, which involves the implementation of modern projects in several departments: e-government, intelligent public transport, intelligent buildings, integrated systems between IT and communication technologies and infrastructure, energy and utilities, e-health, smart education, e-tourism, etc.