Transforming communities and creating smart spaces with the IoT

Technology is a powerful force in creating positive environments and spaces, with some local governments using digital transformation to make their municipalities community-friendly, livable and good for business. The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of many services and capabilities that help to create smarter communities and cities.

The City of Joondalup in Western Australia has a healthy approach to technology, seeing it as a contribution towards creating a more livable place. Partnering with Telstra on a trial project, the City set specific goals aimed at transforming Tom Simpson Park, Mullaloo, into a smart park by embracing the IoT.

It’s a great example of how local government is using technology to provide services and information that can help maximise efficiencies, monitor and manage the environment, and streamline the management of council assets and infrastructure.

“We’re using technology to help make the park a better place for the thousands of people who visit each month,” said Joondalup Mayor Troy Pickard. “The technology has been designed to meet specific needs, like making it even easier for visitors to find a car park and keeping the park clean and safe for everyone to enjoy.”

The City of Joondalup trial is a proof of concept demonstrating a diverse range of IoT applications, all of which highlight the importance of having the right telecommunications infrastructure to enable innovative applications. Specifically, the trial included the following the services and applications:

• Environmental sensors that monitor light, temperature, noise, humidity and pollution levels in the park in real time.
• A smart bin solution with sensors on the 32 bins located in the park that notify the waste services team when bins need to be emptied, enabling more efficient rubbish collection and insights into which areas of the park are being more frequently accessed by the community.
• An IoT-enabled smart car park connected to the Telstra mobile network that shows how many spaces are available to people travelling to the area, helping traffic flows during peak periods and summer holidays.
• An analytics tool and dashboard that provides a real-time view of how the park and its infrastructure are being used, helping the City to monitor park facilities, use resources more efficiently and plan more effectively.

These activities were partly focused on optimising the efficient use of resources, but they also allowed the City to monitor and manage assets and infrastructure more efficiently. The resulting data will directly contribute to ongoing design improvements for other parks across the City of Joondalup.

IoT innovations like those being trialled by the City of Joondalup provide an example for other local governments wanting to transform their spaces, places and operations by using IoT. They’re also essential sustainability tools when it comes to maximising energy productivity, increasing water efficiency and more effectively managing waste minimisation and recycling services.

Telstra’s IoT specialists are well placed to assist local governments make IoT and digital transformation a reality on the ground. Whether it’s about infrastructure and deployment or specific applications and services, Telstra’s expertise can streamline the process of creating smart parks, smart neighbourhoods and sustainable cities. Productive collaboration between Telstra and local governments can thus help create IoT services and applications that are socially desirable, economically sensible and environmentally sustainable.