Smart Bins and Digital Twins

On 16 & 17 May 2022, we held the latest transnational meeting of the DigiPlace action planning network in the city of Botosani, Romania. This was a hybrid meeting, with a mixture of online and in-person attendance for some sessions due to the travel limitations for some partners. In addition to hearing about and reviewing progress with IAP development and Small Scale Actions from the partner cities, one main topic discussed was that of “smart waste”...(!) This was not about old sandwiches from URBACT meetings that had evolved into new life forms, but about using digital systems to manage the collection and disposal of city waste more efficiently.

Botosani has been running a small scale action looking at technology to help understand citizen behaviours in relation to waste and recycling, to use this in future policy making. We also heard from partner cities Oulu (FI) and Messina (IT) about their own experience of digitally-enabled waste management. 

Oulu have been using Wastebook, a start-up digital platform and app for enabling waste collection on-demand for citizens as well as active monitoring of municipal waste bins. The on-demand option allows residents to use the app to request a collection when their bin is getting full, which leads to a collection being dynamically scheduled into the waste company’s collection route. This uses AI algorithms to calculate the optimal route for waste collection vehicles to move around the bins that need to be collected in the most efficient manner, only visiting bins when needed.

A similar algorithm is linked with the municipal bin monitoring system, which tracks how much waste is in over 1000 of the city’s bins using sensors, and schedules bins into the collection cycle when they become close to being full. This has resulted in a 40% reduction in both the number of collections and of the number of vehicles needed in the fleet, with the associated  reductions in cost and carbon emissions.

Messina similarly has active management of its waste services using a network of sensors, cameras and associated machine learning and AI algorithms. In addition, the city is currently working with local partners including the University of Messina, to use it’s network of webcams around the city to automatically detect illegal dumping of waste in streets and green spaces and report this directly to the police. Coupled with ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition), the system is being trained to spot the crime and tag the licence plate of any vehicle involved, to enable easier tracing of the people responsible and issue fines.

These were all great examples of existing technology and know-how (IoT sensors, route optimisation, machine learning, video recognition etc.) being combined to tackle real city challenges or to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of city services.

We also heard from our local Romanian partners about an ongoing digital scanning project in their city, where they have partnered with local digital businesses to develop a new technique for scanning their old town, including both the buildings above ground and the unique network of underground tunnels beneath the city.

This intricate set of tunnels dates back hundreds of years, and through a combination of laser scanning and radar, the project has created a digital twin of the old town, above and below ground! Some of the tunnels are hidden and not physically accessible, but using this digital scanning they are now located and mapped. In addition to enhancing the knowledge about the city’s history, this digital twin can also be used in future touristic offerings as well as geographical and archaeological studies. This has been an ambitious project for the city, and shows how even cities that are much less digitally “advanced” in many areas, can successfully deliver projects that use cutting-edge techniques to explore new combinations of technologies and deliver true digital innovation.

The group attending the meeting in-person then had the opportunity to visit the old town and descend into some of the tunnels that have been opened up. The particular section we visited is to be developed into a digitally enabled city museum - a fusion of old town infrastructure with modern digital exhibits that will enable visitors to experience Botosani in new and exciting ways, a great combination of ancient and modern.

Maybe there will even be a smart waste-bin down there…

Ian Graham

Lead Expert, DigiPlace