Mission Smart City
© Zukunftsstadt
Ulm is a city in transition and strives to shape the changes and upheavals of the coming years well. In doing so, all municipal digital approaches must be assessed against the major tasks of the future. The following question is the starting point of the Smart City mission: "How can we shape our growing and changing city in a way that focuses on sustainability and citizens' quality of life?" The answers are incorporated into the Smart City Strategy of the city of Ulm, which has been adopted by the city council.
Here you can find detailed information on the Smart City Strategy Ulm, which is summarized and clearly presented in a separate website (german).
© DA
Urban development and digitization - in Ulm, these go hand in hand. In addition to the vision, the following target images are also highly important for the design of the Smart City Ulm. They reflect the four major future tasks for the city which are "Growing City", "Changing City", "Sustainability and Climate Protection" and the good "Handling of Data".
Changing city
The city is subject to constant change. Ulm is - and should remain - one of the most liveable cities in Germany and Europe. It is important to actively shape change and find clever answers that will have digital components. Ulm also sees itself as a centre for knowledge and employment in the future.
Sustainable urban development, climate protection & circular economy
The climate policy measures that Ulm has been taking for 20 years can be significantly improved by linking them to new digital opportunities. The city targets to become nearly climate neutral, expand recyclability, and thus conserve valuable resources.
Growing city
Ulm is a growing city that will move closer to the metropolitan regions of Stuttgart and Munich from 2022, following the opening of the new high-speed rail line. As a result, passenger and freight traffic will change, new digital solutions will be needed for.
Dealing with data
In order to give everyone the chance to navigate in a self-determined way through everyday digital life, the urban data space ensures that data remains within the city's sovereign domain and is used according to the city's rules of the game. The technological sovereignty of the city of Ulm and the citizenry is ensured.
These four target images represent what the city of Ulm is striving for as a smart city. They form the bridge between the initial situation and future tasks, as well as the concretization of technological and digital effects on the city in the various fields of action, which are shown below.
The development of the Smart City Ulm takes place in various fields of action. Based on the vision and the target images of the city of Ulm, the fields of action concretize their implications. The fields of action were developed in close interaction between science, experts, employees of the city administration and citizens. To this end, expert interviews were conducted in order to integrate existing basic and specialist knowledge from the departments into the discussion of the initial situation.
Many of the objectives of the fields of action thus find their origin in strategies and concepts that have already been adopted. The drafts of the fields of action were discussed intensively with various partners from the municipal companies, the specialist departments and civil society institutions. After their revision, the fields of action were presented to the public in an online event and questions and suggestions were discussed. These suggestions were also incorporated into the fields of action.
Overall, the fields of action of the Smart City Strategy provide the building blocks for further digital development within the various thematic areas. They also provide an anchor point for future strategies, both for the city as a whole and in individual specialist areas. Since the fields of action were prepared very comprehensively and cover a broad range of topics, the reference within the field of action to digitization was always established.
Furthermore, the Ulm strategy pursues the ambitious goal of linking sustainability and digitization, i.e., of making a contribution to sustainable development by means of digital technologies. For this reason, the topic of sustainability is an inherent aspect of each field of action. The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provided the starting point; they were taken into account during the development of the strategy and have been incorporated into the fields of action.
The process of creating the Smart City Strategy was significantly influenced by the impact of the Corona pandemic. The directly experienced changes will not disappear with falling infection figures, but will influence the way we live, think, build and act in the long term. Accordingly, references to the impact and consequences of the pandemic were also made in the individual action areas.
The fields of action
Mobility | Culture | Energy | Education | Security | Economy, Research & Development |
Commerce, City Center & Tourism | Urban Development, Buildings & Housing |
Emergency & Disaster Management | Coexistence & Society |
Supply & Waste Management | Health & Care | Environment & Climate
© Stadtarchiv Ulm
Intercultural Communication Space (ICS)
Language is the key for a good coexistence in the urban society. Initially for use in the Museum Ulm and perspectively in other places as well, an audio translation application has been developed that enables multilingual communication - without the use of additional terminals. A room is technically equipped in such a way that the spoken language is recognized by microphone and the translation is delivered into the conversation by loudspeaker .
Security in the smart city: cleverly defusing hot spots
The aim of the project is to use smart lighting technology to make places in Ulm safer and improve the quality of stay. Together with citizens and, if necessary, security forces, workshops were held and fearful spaces identified as examples. With the help of a 3D model and the cooperation of different actors, these spaces will be made safer.
Virtual marketplace to promote civic dialog
A digital meeting place with a marketplace character for citizens of all ages to promote cooperation between all generations. The focus is on people to get to know other people with similar interests, to share knowledge with them or to make competencies/skills available to others. The virtual marketplace provides the digital tools needed. Through interesting content offerings and personalized support, older people with little technical knowledge are introduced to new media.
Glass Pyramid 4.0 - A Chatbot
A chatbot is used in the Ulm City Library to support visitors. The chatbot supports library users with questions or problems. Based on the experience gained in the development of the functionalities of the chatbot 2021, it is planned to add media research in the medium term. The vision is to provide 24/7 service to customers and to develop the Glass Pyramid towards an Open Library.
The user-friendly care support point on the web
The Center of Care ("Pflegestützpunkt/PSP) in Ulm is an important point of contact for those affected. However, the Internet presence of the PSP on the municipal website of the city of Ulm is no longer up to date in terms of accessibility of information for those in need of care and caregiving relatives. An appealing and clear and transparent design of the information, should give those affected a better orientation to various aspects of care and should be a first point of contact for the advice offered by the care support point. Simple language, accessibility and design appeal are important criteria.
More Projects are listed here Innovative digital solutions.