IBM to help Parma become a 'smart city'

The Italian city of Parma will work with IBM to create a new model for a sustainable “smart city.”

The initiative seeks to generate citizen-focused innovations that will provide new “intelligence” for the city’s existing infrastructure, which will help it to optimise its use of resources, reduce traffic congestion, and improve services and efficiency.

“This strategic initiative, signed with IBM, allows us to create an Innovation Board,” said Pietro Vignali, Mayor of Parma. “This board has the mission of finding innovative citizen services solutions leveraging new technologies: from info-mobility to security, to social services. We are the first town in Italy to engage in this initiative with IBM and this puts Parma in the network of Europe’s most innovative capitals, like Stockholm and London.”

One of the first projects to get under way in Parma will be the installation of virtual tellers in several locations around the city. Citizens will be able touse the tellers to handle municipal interactions such as delivering and receiving documents and cheques, filling in and signing forms, and requesting support.

IBM is working on similar “smart city” programmes in Singapore, Brisbane and Stockholm, as well as on the island of Malta.

“It is vital for the future that we transform our cities into accessible, dynamic, thriving communities,” said Luciano Martucci, General Manager of IBM Italy. “In cities like Parma, technology can make the local systems and infrastructure smarter and create benefits directly related toward improving the quality of life for all its citizens, in a cost-effective way.”

Parma is one of six Italian cities that have agreed on a common protocol on IT innovation, and is the first to initiate the project.