Spain's Transportation Innovation Research Institute CENIT Partners with Suwon Smart City

[Suwon Ilbo=Reporter Seo Dong-young] Suwon City is collaborating with CENIT, a transportation innovation research institute in Barcelona, Spain, to develop a global smart city.

CENIT is a nonprofit research institute jointly established in 2001 by the Catalonia Regional Government, Catalonia Polytechnic University, and the Barcelona Industrial Park (UPC), which researches urban transportation solutions.

CENIT officials signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with Suwon City in April. In the event that Suwon City is selected for the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's Smart City Challenge project, they agreed to participate in joint research, program development, and cross-demonstration projects between cities.

Suwon City was selected as a target site for the Smart City Challenge project in May. Accordingly, Kristi Shalla, Project Development Director of CENIT, visited Suwon from July 9 to discuss specific participation methods.

CENIT will review the feasibility of results derived step-by-step from the ‘Living Lab’ that the city is conducting and support the project by analyzing similar cases from cities worldwide. The Living Lab, referred to as a "living laboratory," refers to an attempt to find solutions to various social problems by treating various sites in citizens' everyday lives as laboratories.

Kristi Shalla, Project Development Director of CENIT, stated, “An eco-mobility project is underway in ‘22@(22@arba)’, an urban regeneration district in Barcelona. Cross-demonstration with Suwon City on matters such as urban data collection and utilization methods would be effective.” Eco-mobility refers to an environmentally and socially desirable transportation system that includes non-powered mobility such as walking and cycling, public transportation, eco-friendly electric-powered mobility, and connections between these modes.

A city official stated, “Barcelona is a city leading smart cities in Europe. If projects successful in Barcelona are tested in Suwon City, and projects attempted in Suwon City are applied in Barcelona as well, they can develop into globally useful policies.”