Author: Joelle Harms

Intergeo 2016 host DVW German Society for Geodesy, Geoinformation and Land Management gathered together experts from the worlds of business, public authorities and science to talk about this year’s key topic of the show: the “smart city.” Held in April at Hamburg’s Agency for Geoinformation and Surveying, the event focused on what an intelligent, digital city might look like and what role geoinformation would play as cities and metropolitan regions become “smart.”

Intergeo 2016, the leading international event for the geospatial community, will be held Oct. 11-13 in Hamburg, Germany, and also will focus on smart cities as a multi-faceted issue to shape the future.

During the preview, attendees agreed that cities must, and will, become more intelligent because of the benefits it has to society, Intergeo officials say in a May news release.

Preview event attendees included Jörg Amend, Trimble Germany GmbH; Chirine Etezadzadeh, Ph.D., SmartCity.institute; Rolf-Werner Welzel, managing director, Hamburg’s Agency for Geoinformation and Surveying; Sebastian Hetzel, Hamburg Traffic and Road Network Authority; and Prof. Thomas Kersten, HafenCity University Hamburg.

“They all agreed that the increasing penetration of digital technologies into cities is not an end in itself.” Intergeo says in the news release. “First and foremost is the common good of society and the advantages that digitalization offers inhabitants. This will ensure that cities can be run on a more intelligent basis and thus become a sustainable living space. The preview participants felt that smart geodata was an essential prerequisite in this regard.”

The host city for Intergeo 2016, Hamburg has been quick to position itself with “Hamburg’s Strategy for the Digital City,” which aims to develop a standardized smart city strategy. Key areas include mobility, energy, business and work, accommodation and city life. The city’s residents also will be involved in the strategy.

The roll-out of intelligent solutions for individual segments of the city is done in dialogue with residents, politicians, administrators, business people and scientists. Taking traffic as an example, smart mobility concepts are designed to improve the flow of traffic so as to minimize the delays caused by congestion while also lowering CO2 emissions, Intergeo says. Measures of a smart city include intelligent transport systems, semi-automated vehicle guidance, sharing concepts, intelligent parking facility management, apps for inhabitant participation and city planning processes that help to avoid traffic in the best-case scenario.

Everyone at the preview agreed that a standardized language must be developed and understood if forward-looking, complex processes such as the development of an intelligent digital city are to be successfully rolled out, according to Intergeo.