Today, a range of smart infrastructures are embedded in the Internet of Things, including smart kiosks, parking lots, transportation systems, connected vehicles, weather monitoring, waste control, lighting and traffic control. Cities connect their infrastructure to deliver urban services more efficiently, save money and provide the means to interact with citizens, visitors and local businesses.
Berlin lays the foundation for a smart city ecosystem
Berlin is an old city that has been rebuilt many times. Retailers still often balk at card payments, and the city only introduced free public Wi-Fi in 2016, and most public services require applicants to submit extensive paper forms in person or send faxes.
However, Berlin has a clear political commitment as a smart city. in April 2015, the Berlin Senate decided on the Smart City Berlin strategy. The goals of the Smart City Strategy include expanding the international competitiveness of the Berlin-Brandenburg metropolitan region, increasing Berlin's resource efficiency and climate neutrality by 2050, and creating pilot markets for innovative applications.
Berlin commits to open data
Open data is one of the keys to successful smart city implementation. It can help identify and solve citizens' problems, ensure accountability of municipal officials, and create new business opportunities. Data on education, healthcare, transportation and tourism can facilitate new application development, research projects and targeted local activities. Citizens can access the data and information held by the Berlin government through the portal and use them further. More than 800 datasets are already available, including access to data on the Berlin power grid.
Startups bring new innovations
Berlin is home to dozens of successful smart city and mobility startups, incubators and gas pedals. One example is Drivery, where 80 companies have access to hardware studios, a high-tech prototyping garage and a GPU farm that provides additional processing power for AI development.
DB Mindbox, Deutsche Bahn's shared office space, is also located in Berlin, where startups and DB employees collaborate on innovations in DB's core rail business, especially those based on digital technology.DB offers entrepreneurs and developers a place where they can develop products and test their marketability in line with the needs of rail customers.
Berlin is also home to MotionLab.Berlin, a hardware innovation center and creatorspace in Berlin with access to its proprietary prototyping machines. In addition to building strong relationships with partners, manufacturers, investors and customers, members benefit from faster product development and reduced development costs.
Innovative Berlin smart city solutions from Berlin startups
GreenPack
GreenPack develops open battery replacement systems for electric light vehicles. They created standardized, high-performance batteries that can be easily replaced at exchange stations throughout the city. With standardized GreenPack batteries, more and more applications can be run intelligently with mobile electricity: from sharing and delivery services or load transport in public spaces to the operation of lawnmowers, snow blowers or weed whackers in gardening and landscape maintenance.
Ubitricity
As the number of electric vehicles increases, so does the need for charging stations. Übitricity has developed a charging cable that plugs into a standard electrical outlet and comes with software that allows for remote billing. In addition, Ubitricity has transformed ordinary street lights into car charging stations, a cheap, easy-to-implement solution that doesn't take up much more space than dedicated charging stations. The system is designed to allow electric car drivers to make better use of the existing electrical infrastructure without the risk of power theft.
Civocracy
Civocracy creates a platform for citizen engagement and consultation services, providing governments with the means to work constructively with citizens and ensure that people's voices are heard. This enables them to work together to develop policies and programs to be implemented in their communities for the betterment of society.
Smart Connected Transportation Initiative
Berlin is home to a wide range of transportation service providers working to reduce car ownership, reduce carbon emissions, reduce personal dependence on cars, and increase last-mile options such as the Uber Pool Express mega-taxi.
Since September 2018, Berlin has been trialling an on-demand electric shuttle service called Berlkönig. Passengers book a trip via the accompanying app, an algorithm bundles trip requests from multiple passengers from the same destination, and the app then creates a route and registers the passengers into a shared vehicle. It's cheaper than a cab, more convenient than a bus, and has made 1.4 million journeys so far.