Merida will become a “Smart City”

With an investment of 420 thousand euros from two international enterprises, the Smart City project will offer instant solutions to citizens in terms of housing, mobility and urban planning…

MERIDA – Currently, Merida is considered the city with the best quality of life in Mexico, but it also faces challenges in terms of economic, social and environmental sustainability due to its exponential growth during the last 25 years.

In this context, Rodrígo Solís Pasos, Merida’s Director of Information Technologies, explained that the participation of Mayor Mauricio Vila Dosal at “2016 Smart City Expo World Congress” in Barcelona, ​​Spain, allowed him to sign this year an agreement with the technology enterprises Ikusi and Cisco. In the agreement they committed to donate €420,000 euros ($8.4 million pesos) for the integration of the “Smart Merida” project.

“An intelligent city is the one that offers instant solutions to citizens in terms of housing, mobility and urban planning. The Smart Cities programs aren’t new, there are already several Smart Cities around the world like Houston, Texas; Curitiba, Brazil and Hong Kong, China”, explained Solís Pasos.

The official added that the San Benito market area was chosen to test the program, because according to a study recently carried out by the Municipal Planning Institute of Merida (Implan), there are more than 120,000 people who transit in this area.

The “Smart City” program obtains real-time data from the city to solve the aforementioned problems in a very specific area. This data will be sent to a command center called “Spider” that will be connected to the community through a cell-phone application that will also help “Spider” receive information from the citizens that use it and the camera system around the city.

Source: www.yucatan.com.mx