Torino City Lab is a digital laboratory, where any local or international company that develops technologies involved in building smart cities can test their projects.
The aim of the project initiated by Torino municipality is to bring innovative solutions of public interest to improve city life. The participants have the city at their disposal. They can use the local network, the infrastructure, the citizen communities and all the monitoring tools available.
Interested companies can apply to test their projects. The criteria for selection are innovation, sustainability, technical feasibility and the potential to generate social impact. The selected companies get access to partners that have the network, the technology and the know how to make the most out of the testing experience.
This year, the first project to go into testing is “LAURA - a new way to live the street”, an infomobility system used to digitise the traffics lights signals. A network of sensors applied to lanterns extracts and digitizes the traffic signals and makes them available on the display of the mobile phone. Traffic lights communicate with each other, pedestrians and vehicles.
This project can make a considerable difference in the lives of the visually impaired, but it can also help to prevent accidents generated by distracted pedestrians or drivers who use their mobile phones. Additionally, the hardware mounted on the lanterns sends the timing of the traffic lights to a server, to improve the calculation of routes on satellite navigators.
A notification with information about the traffic light colour, vibrations and sound will hopefully contribute to making Torino a safer and more livable city.
