How Winterthur is becoming a Smart City
The smart city strategy lays the foundation for Winterthur to become even more connected, secure, innovative and resource-saving - in other words, a smart city. Read here how exactly this works.
A lot has happened in Winterthur in recent years: The population has grown enormously, and digitalisation and networking are becoming increasingly important. However, the city – like many other urban centres – is confronted with challenges that are becoming increasingly complex and overarching: Increasing cost pressure, overloaded infrastructures or achieving energy efficiency and climate protection goals and promoting innovation are some of them. With the Smart City programme, the city wants to address these tasks. The term stands for new holistic urban development projects. The aim is to make Winterthur more efficient, progressive and sustainable thanks to the networking of new technologies and stakeholders.
in 2018, Winterthur’s city council adopted a strategy that defines goals and thematic areas, regulates organisational anchoring and implementation, defines the necessary resources for planning and implementation, and identifies possible projects and measures. The Smart City Winterthur aims to create an innovative, progressive and networked city that focuses on people and the environment. Thanks to the intelligent networking of infrastructures with modern technologies and the involvement of relevant stakeholders, these goals are to be achieved and the city is to be perceived as an attractive cooperation partner for companies, the population and educational and research institutes.
Innovations within the administration and at the Winterthur location are to be promoted together with various partners. The programme covers important topics such as energy, mobility, smart government, education and innovation as well as housing, health and ageing. Thanks to an annual innovation credit, Smart City projects – such as the climate simulation using the example of Lokstadt – can be implemented.
The smart city strategy is currently being revised after about four years of experience.