Status: 04/02/2023 18:03
In a European comparison, German cities still have a lot of catching up to do when it comes to digitization, and the federal government is funding “smart cities” with millions. Some cities want to get ahead themselves – for example Trier.
How smart a city is can also be seen in how it treats its wastewater. In Trier, the public utilities even rely on artificial neural networks, a form of artificial intelligence (AI). It calculates in real time how the waste water in the cleaning tanks can be cleaned as efficiently as possible.
A quarter of the energy used can be saved in this area, says Marius Barbian, sewage foreman at the public utility company. The AI also controls how waste water is best routed through the 500-kilometer sewer network. The Barbian calls it “intelligent sewer network management”: “The software suggests how the pumps in the sewer system should be operated in order to use the capacities in the sewers as well as possible, for example in heavy rain.
Citizen Participation and Data Collection
The wastewater example shows how cities can use digital technology intelligently: smart cities are the keyword here. The topic is not only relevant for metropolises like Munich or Berlin: in the so-called Smart City Index of the digital industry association Bitkom, cities like Nuremberg, Ulm and Trier also do well. What is different here than in other cities?
In the Bitkom ranking, for example, Trier scores with a citizen participation platform that the city intends to expand further. 2,500 citizens are currently registered, says Johanna Pfaab, who oversees the project at the city administration. The platform was used, for example, when around 250 suggestions for renaming a street were collected. Or when the city was looking for locations for retractable bollards. The residents of Trier can also submit complaints to the responsible authorities digitally.
An important factor for a smart city is how municipalities collect and use data. In Trier, for example, this is to be promoted in the area of mobility in order to better control traffic in the city and thus reduce CO2 emissions. For example, sensors on street lamps and ground sensors on parking lots should record the current traffic situation.
Good data management is one of the basics
“These data are then transmitted to a central platform and evaluated,” says Thorsten Kraus, the city of Trier’s digitization officer. If a parking space is full or a traffic axis is blocked, LED panels, for example, should suggest alternative routes to drivers. Traffic light switching could also be better controlled using the data.
Functioning data management is one of the foundations for successful city digitization, says Michael Pfefferle, Smart City expert at Bitkom. For example for urban planning: “If 300 families move into a residential area, then that also means that day care centers are needed there and possibly a tram connection.”
Such data is not only relevant for the building authority, but also for the education and mobility sector. But the data transfer often fails because the cities still work too analog, as Pfefferle describes. “Municipalities are sitting on a lot of data, but they can’t use it because it’s not digitized.”
Administrative procedures not yet sufficiently digitized
The fact that the state as a whole still has a lot of catching up to do is also shown by the so-called Online Access Act: Actually, administrative procedures should have been digitized by the end of last year, but this requirement was clearly missed. Only a small fraction of the authorities’ total of 575 “service bundles” was actually available online to all citizens in Germany.
“The digitization of administration is the main focus for us,” says Kraus, Trier’s digitization officer. 80 digital services are now available in the city, such as the registration certificate or changing your place of residence. In order for even more digital services to be added, there is a lack of Germany-wide standardized software and a clearer prioritization of which services are to be implemented as quickly as possible, as Kraus says.
But the digitization of administration is also the be-all and end-all for a smart city, says Pfefferle: “As long as there is still a lot to do here, municipalities have little capacity to take care of anything else.”
Digitization as a location factor
Digital communication with the authorities is not only a relief for citizens, but also for the economy. “The real power users here are the local companies,” says Pfefferle. Municipalities must understand digitization as a location factor in which it is worth investing – despite often tight budgets.
In order to promote smart cities as a whole, the federal government has provided funding – a total of 820 million euros for model projects. But it has been shown that the funding is not being used enough, says Bitkom expert Pfefferle.
The question is also: when will the solutions that have been developed for four years as part of the program for certain model projects finally be made available to the other municipalities?” There are also funding programs from individual federal states. “The federal and state governments are City funding not coordinated,” says Pfefferle. He calls for clearer coordination.
Left behind in the EU
As a result, Germany is in a bad position in international comparison, as Pfefferle describes. In the so-called “DESI Index” of the EU, which records the digitization of various areas, Germany, as the economically strongest nation, ends up in the middle. When it comes to digital public services, Germany is only 18th in the EU.
European cities like Copenhagen show that Germany is sometimes left behind, says Pfefferle. Comprehensive digitization has become a matter of course there: “People are no longer necessarily talking about a smart city, but rather about a green city: the big challenge for cities is to counteract climate change.”
Sustainability is also on the agenda
The topic of sustainability is also on the agenda in Trier, and the municipal sewage treatment plant is also used here. With a hydroelectric turbine, photovoltaic systems on the roof and combined heat and power plants that are operated with sewage gas, it generates significantly more energy than it consumes.
“We can heat the adjacent technology park with the waste heat that we generate as a waste product,” says sewage master Marius Barbian. Due to the self-generated electricity, the system is energy-neutral. Other projects are currently being planned to generate even more energy.
So is Trier already a smart city? “It’s a development process,” says Kraus, the city’s digitization officer. It’s about new technologies, but actually much more about adapting to new developments. “People have to benefit from that,” says Kraus. “And that never ends.”