Infrastructure is a word so many people have used with so many different meanings that it’s almost become a word without meaning. Infrastructure always used to mean streets and roads, sidewalks and water purification plants and wastewater treatment plants with their associated piping were pretty well it. Bridges and tunnels were infrastructure as well, usually as a subset of roads.
Some people threw airports into the mix. Others lumped ports in.
So infrastructure came to mean public services. Of course it wasn’t long before schools were included, along with things like public housing and seniors’ residences.
During the last federal election campaign, the Liberals talked a lot about "social infrastructure" and put things like child care under the umbrella.
Of course, as environmental awareness grew, we got "green infrastructure" and with the growth of digital technologies we have "smart infrastructure."
Smart infrastructure led inevitably to smart cities, and, that leads us to Santander, Spain, an historic port city of about 175,000 on Spain’s north coast, facing the Bay of Biscay.
Most of us have never heard of the city; fewer have visited. But it is attracting foreign visitors now because it has become a living laboratory for "smart cities."
Luis Munoz, a professor at the city’s University of Cantabria, first pitched the idea of creating a smart city to local officials back in 2009. Seven years later there have been international visitors who came not for the scenery or the food, but for the technology.
Singapore has sent a delegation. Boston is planning to. So is Aarhus in Denmark. The European Commission has weighed in with some funding. So has a handful of foreign universities.
In a way, there isn’t much to see, since the "smart" concept is based on sensors — about 20,000 in all, under the asphalt on streets, stuck to street lamps, city buses, in shop windows — just about any place you might guess, and some places where you wouldn’t. Like riding around on top of city buses.
The bus installations are about the size of a shoebox with four antennae. They collect data on rainfall and road traffic, which are sent to a control centre to help the city provide services more efficiently and more cheaply.
Four hundred sensors buried under street paving in the city centre monitor parking spots. Light panels at intersections and GPS devices send drivers to the nearest space.
QR codes, those squiggly bar codes that never quite caught on in North America, can be spotted on more than 1,500 shop windows. Scan one with your phone and you get information about the shop, along with a link to its online sales page, so you can place an order after hours if you wish.
Scan a QR code at a bus stop and you’ll be told when the next bus will arrive. Pay for parking by scanning the QR code on the parking metre.
Sensors installed in sidewalk trash bins tell the city when they are full and should be emptied. Sensors monitor ground moisture in public parks and turn on the irrigation system only when the soil is dry. Soon, streetlights will automatically dim when there is no one nearby, then return to full brightness as someone approaches.
The system’s existence has led to the development of a number of smartphone apps. One provides residents with information about their water use and sends an alert to their phone if there is a leak.
Another helps residents and tourists find shops, medical offices, libraries and bus stops.
There is even one that outlines the easiest routes for someone pushing a baby buggy, or using a wheelchair, or walking with crutches or canes.
Santander is now billed as Europe’s most connected city. And it is also defining a whole new kind infrastructure.
Korky Koroluk is an Ottawa-based freelance writer. Send comments to editor@dailycommercialnews.com.
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