- Urban Sensing – Smart Solutions for Monitoring Environmental Quality: Case Studies from Serbia    click here to open paper content735 kb
by    Brkovic, Matija & Sretovic, Visnja | matija0brkovic@gmail.com   click here to send an email to the auther(s) of this paper
Short Outline
This paper explores smart solutions used to monitor environmental parameters and aid planning practise. Two projects in Serbia will be discussed. Both provide real-time location-based data, user-centric service, and rise environmental awareness.
Abstract
IT smart solutions can significantly contribute to urban planning and development. This
paper will explore how these systems can be used as tools to aid planning practise in the
area of monitoring environmental parameters, essential to the identification of sources
of pollution, and understanding their behaviour.

Two different example projects currently underway in Serbia will be discussed, both of
which have potential to assist urban planning to a great extent. Both systems are GIS
based, provide the location based information, real-time monitoring, effective user-
centric service, and also rise environmental awareness among the population.

The first one is the EcoBus smart city service in Pančevo. It uses instruments mounted
onto the existing public transportation vehicles in order to monitor a set of
environmental parameters over a large area, thus providing the real-time information
about the air quality, temperature and humidity in the city of Pančevo ¬– one of the most
polluted cities in Serbia. This data is freely available on the interactive map
accessible to anyone with an internet connection or mobile phone. EcoBus project is a
pilot project – a result of cooperation between Telekom Serbia, Ericsson, and City of
Pančevo, and is framed within the SmartSantander project funded by the European Union.

Another example, named System48, comes from Inđija, a small but one of the most advanced
municipalities in Serbia. System48 is designed to improve cooperation between the local
government, municipal departments, and public utility enterprises on one hand, and
service recipients on the other. It allows citizens to easily report different issues,
including those specifically relevant to environmental quality: pollution incidents such
as sewage leaks, improper disposal of waste, etc. The value of the system for planning
purposes rests within the stage of the on-going and post-project monitoring, as well as a
means of securing relevant information on vulnerable sites, environmental quality,
specific issues that require immediate planning responses, etc. Since its implementation
in the municipality of Inđija, System48 has been implemented in a number of other
municipalities in Serbia.

Following the overview of the aforementioned applications of the smart solutions, the
paper will conclude with the concrete messages relevant for planning practice. Both the
benefits and the shortcomings arousing from the implementation of such tools will be
explored and summarized, and messages on how the smart solutions could be improved and
further employed will be suggested.
Keywords
smart solutions, urban sensing, environment monitoring, urban planning
Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2012: Fast Forward: Planning in a (hyper) dynamic urban context
click here to open paper content  Click to open the full paper as pdf document
click here to send an email to the auther(s) of this paper  Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper