Santander, 19 March 2014.- SmartSantander, an Internet of Things (IoT) EU project led by Telefónica R&D, has presented its final results after three years of activity. Santander has become the first comprehensive smart city in Europe and an international benchmark in smart city design.

The European Commission highlighted the management by Telefónica R&D, alongside the technical coordination of the University of Cantabria, asserting that “the project has successfully achieved all its objectives, even exceeding initial expectations.” Santander City Council also provided an invaluable contribution in deploying and promoting the project.

Telefónica has been fully involved with the project and Santander. In addition to coordinating the activity of 25 partner development agencies (24 from Europe and one from Australia), Telefónica, in 2013, created a pioneering Smart Cities Innovation Centre located in Santander, which spearheads innovation in smart cities and maintains relations with agencies worldwide. Telefónica has transferred the results obtained in this experience to its smart cities design, while also leading the development of the European FI-WARE platform, which facilitates the creation of apps for the Internet of the Future – to be implemented in the most advanced smart cities.

With a budget of 8.67 million euros, SmartSantander rolled out the largest urban infrastructure in the world, capable of providing smart city services to citizens and serving as a laboratory for scientific experimentation in technologies which will fuel the Internet of the Future.

The infrastructure rolled out in the city provided a test bed which the European Union has described as essential to achieve European leadership in IoT technologies. This also provided research communities with a single platform for large-scale experimentation and the evaluation of concepts associated with the IoT in real conditions.

The conclusions of the EC's report were presented this morning in Santander at an event presided over by the mayor of the city, Íñigo de la Serna Hernáiz, and with the participation of Eduardo Arasti, Minister for Industry, Innovation, Tourism and Trade of the Regional Government of Cantabria, the chancellor of the University of Cantabria, José Carlos Gómez Sal, José Manuel Hernández from Telefónica R&D and coordinator of the project, as well as Luis Muñoz, Professor of Thematic Engineering at the University of Cantabria and technical coordinator of SmartSantander.

20,000 devices which transformed a city

The project rolled out over 20,000 devices in Santander and the surrounding area (sensors, repeaters, gateways, informative screens, mobile handsets, etc.) enabling various applications in areas such as public transport and mobility, traffic, environment, pollution, waste management, noise control, climatology, security, water management and health care. When put together this creates the foundation on which to develop a true smart city.

Among other examples, this project enabled monitoring of the occupation and use of parking spaces reserved for people with reduced mobility; improvements in the management of urban traffic to reduce polluting emissions; monitoring of environmental variables to reduce the use of water in parks and gardens and intelligent management of public lighting to reduce energy consumption, adapting it to real needs.

The aim was to create a sustainable, efficient and "green" city, with smart management, in which citizens can interact dynamically with local government and with the services themselves -ultimately making Santander a better place to live.

The project has received numerous Spanish and international awards. In May 2011 it obtained the Future Internet Award at the Future Internet Assembly held in Budapest. It has also received awards from the Ibero-American COMPUTERWORLD&CIO 2012 and the magazine CAPITAL, among others.