The City Living Lab is a research unit driven by the aspiration to solve contemporary urban challenges by engaging communities and utilizing spatial data, algorithms and interdisciplinary expertise.
Develop and deploy cutting-edge technologies, including spatial data analysis and AI-driven algorithms, to enhance urban planning, infrastructure development, sustainable mobility and public services.
Create platforms and organize initiatives for engaging with local communities, businesses, and stakeholders to co-create urban solutions.
Utilize various urban data to provide insights and improve policy decisions and urban development, ensuring that interventions are context related and aligned with the broader urban strategic development documents.
The business model of the City Living Lab is focused on providing the following main services to external organizations:
The City Living Lab provides data collection, analysis and testing services to companies and public bodies. The pricing model of the analytical services is on a fee-for-service basis. The fees could vary depending on the volume of data analysed, complexity of analysis and insights provided. Customized reports and actionable recommendations could be provided to clients in urban planning, environmental policies implementation and traffic management.
The Lab provides access to its own infrastructure for external organizations. Companies could rent City Living Lab infrastructure and access scientist expertise for their projects. Rental fees are charged based on equipment usage and facility access duration. Flexible scheduling and technical support could be offered.
The City Living Lab facilitates collaborative R&D projects with companies, leveraging its infrastructure and multidisciplinary expertise. These projects can be initiated either by companies seeking innovative solutions or through partnerships funded by public grants. Collaborative R&D initiatives involve joint efforts between the Lab’s research team and external partners.
Consultancy services provided by the City Living Lab involve offering specialized expertise and advice in fields directly relevant to urban and environmental research. Scientists and experts within the Lab offer strategic guidance, methodology selection, research design, problem-solving solutions, and project management support to businesses, government agencies, and organizations.
The City Living Lab collects real-time data for the environment, the traffic and other data useful for modelling the urban environment and processes. Four types of sensors are installed in Lozenets district of Sofia as part of the City Living Lab research infrastructure. The Lab aims to build a digital twin of the city, which will facilitate analysis of the urban environment and the planning processes and foster design experimentation.
The 12 stations collect two groups of data. The first group contains air quality measures such as nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, carbon dioxide, ozone and particulate matter. The other group contains environmental measures – temperature, humidity, air pressure, wind speed and direction as well as rainfall and noise levels.
The second type of sensors measures noise levels and noise direction. There are 60 sensors located both on busy streets and small inner neighbourhood streets with less traffic.
The third type is the 50 pedestrian counters, positioned at key intersections, pedestrian crossings, park entries and around public buildings and trade centres. They measure the count and two directions of the passerbys.
The fourth type is the LIDAR system, which includes six LIDAR sensors, installed at a busy intersection. The LIDARs scan the passing objects and classify them into categories, count them and collect data on their speed and trajectories.
The Lab also accommodates a DJI MATRICE 300 RTK drone, which gathers additional data using close-range photogrammetry and LIDAR scanning technology.
More information: https://citylab.gate-ai.eu/