Romania’s First Smart Park

Bucharest’s Tineretului Park has long been known as an idyllic recreational area. But starting April 25, the Romanian capital will also have one of the “smartest” public spaces in Central and Eastern Europe.

The park goes smart! Telekom Romania and Cisco have developed Romania’s first smart city initiative for Tineretului Park in Bucharest’s Fourth District. The pilot project for the Children’s City area consists of four components aiming to improve the park for residents and visitors alike: Smart parking, WiFi connectivity, city safe and smart lighting.

“We are proud to be the first telecom operator in Romania to have implemented such an innovative project,” said Ovidiu Ghiman of Telekom Romania. By using the Tap&Park mobile application, for example, car drivers can see in real time whether there are free parking spots near Tineretului Park. In the future, this service will be expanded to more parking zones all over Bucharest.

Generally speaking, smart city solutions are based on Internet of Things (IoT) networking, enabling the connection of various objects and platforms to the Internet. There is a high degree of standardisation for these solutions, but they still have to be customised to each city’s specific needs. Daniel Băluță, mayor of Bucharest’s Fourth District said: “I am very glad that Telekom Romania, part of Deutsche Telekom, selected a park in the 4^th district of Bucharest as a pilot for this project. This partnership is a project for the future that will lead cities across the world to a superior level of development.”

Tineretului Park 
In Tineretului Park, this can already be experienced firsthand: The WiFi solution enables park visitors to enjoy up to 300 Mbps Internet access free of charge, covering a radius of approximately 360 metres. The city safe solution involves a video surveillance system that automatically raises alarm for persons requiring immediate help or in the case of vandalism. Furthermore, the smart lighting solution is sensitive to movement and ambient light intensity – helping to decrease energy costs by up to 20 percent.

Deutsche Telekom Group is very active in the smart city arena across Europe and has already implemented a number of smart city projects in Hamburg, Pisa, Dubrovnik, Budapest and Prague, amongst others. And the need for smart city solutions is constantly increasing. “We are currently undergoing the largest wave of urban growth in history. More than half of the world’s population now lives in towns and cities, and by 2030 this number will increase to about 5 billion. It is no wonder that today’s cities face tremendous challenges – from rising populations and shrinking budgets to the need to economize on the use of resources,” says Ralf Nejedl, Senior Vice President B2B & ICT at Deutsche Telekom.