In addition to Wi-Fi at public transport stops, Prague also has its first smart benches. People don’t know much about them
Although there is still no mobile signal in the metro, and in underground stops LTE can only be caught in units of cases, the team around the mayor Adriana Krnáčová (YES), however, still pursues its goal of making the capital a so-called smart city. Just as YES representatives are trying to do so almost everywhere they rule at the local level.
Krnáčová started last year with the glory of the concept Clever Prague (our article), but mostly only on paper. Today, it has six main areas (future mobility, smart buildings and energy, waste-free city, attractive tourism, people and urban environment, data) and eighteen projects in them.
The status of individual projects is possible watch on the official site. There are “traditional” things like charging stations, mobile applications for tourists, smart lighting and the like. The vast majority of projects are in the phase of approval, preparation, verification and agreement with the supplier. A data platform is to be created for the projects, enabling the analysis and use of data from smart Prague (sensors, benches, baskets and more).
Smart bench with vertical garden
If you do not count on a few trams with the possibility of paying with contactless payment cards or the Lítačka card, the only public output of smart Prague are fresh projects in the form of free access. Wi-Fi connection at public transport stops and the first smart benches.
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There are several smart benches in Prague so far, a total of up to ten are to be installed this year. A municipal company is working on the project for the municipality ICT operator, which was established for the purposes of ICT and Smart City projects and around which a lot of people from YES revolve (our article).
The city argues, for example, that “the current mobile generation lacks additional functions in the public space of the city that could reside in it for a long time. From this point of view, the crucial issue is the absence of the possibility to acquire mobile communication devices in public space. “
On Pushkin Square in Dejvice among a number of playgrounds, for example, right next to the station for Rekola you can find the so-called vertical garden. These are two benches built back to back and separated by a higher space where the plants. This garden is supposed to “reduce the amount of airborne dust, reduce noise and temperature in the summer months.”
Multifunctional, but for what?
Solar panels and a small weather station are located in the upper part of the installation of this installation. It senses the parameters of the environment and the solariums take care of the power supply. This is necessary, among other things, for the four USB sockets located two at a time on the sides of the bench. It’s not practical, it takes a long cable, but charging works.
The city provided the bench with important information boards, but when we watched the behavior for some time, there was not much interest in its services yet. We approached about ten people of all ages around them, and none of them knew about the clever features of the bench – even when he was sitting on it.
In addition to USB and sensory capabilities, the bench also has a free internet connection. It does not offer any super speed, measured at about 8 Mb / s on download and 4 Mb / s on upload, but enough to surf and use common applications and services.
According to orders published in the Register of Contracts The ICT operator paid CZK 280,000 thousand excluding VAT for the delivery of a bench on Pushkin Square and its assembly, service, water replenishment or data collection for a period of 6 months. As a maximum, the ICT Operator is allowed by the City to invest in benches in pilot operation CZK 2 million without VAT.
The question here is what such benches really are for in practice. Pirate Party representatives in the municipality are critical of their implementation. “Prague needs a lot of things. This should result from some initial analysis, which should then be followed during implementation. But here the procedure is completely reversed and things that someone has and offers are being solved, and Prague is figuring out why to buy them. This is a mistake and it is exactly the case with smart benches. Their purchase definitely does not result from any need, “he described the representative in an interview for Lupa Ondřej Profant.
“Benches are a project that someone has seen somewhere and decided that they want it because they like it,” says Profant, adding that the Smart Prague project is mainly about spending a lot of money quickly.
The ICT Operator has other benches according to the materials from the register of contracts ordered on Karlínské náměstí in Prague 8, on Vítězné náměstí in Prague 6 and in the so-called Central Park in Modřany. It is always a different type – in Modřany, the most equipped Solar Bench from the American company EnGoPlanet is to become (CZK 210,800 running VAT), the CapaSitty bench on Vítězné náměstí (CZK 142,000 excluding VAT) and the single Steora bench (CZK 103,662 excluding VAT) in Karlín.
Smart benches can also be seen in some parts of the city – for example, Prague 5 installed the Steora bench not far from Anděl, in front of St. Wenceslas Church. “This is a project financed by the municipality and implemented by the ICT Operator. As part of the cooperation, the city district of Prague 5 provided us with a place where the smart bench can be tested. It is the same with all other benches in this project, “says the ICT Operator.
Wi-Fi at public transport stops
Pirates are also critical in other things about ICT. Alert for a contract for data center equipment worth 38 million crowns. Mention short bids, specifications taken from hardware vendor marketing materials (Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Cisco), closedness, and more.
In the case of Wi-Fi hotspots at public transport stops, the ICT Operator does not engage. Prague cooperates with companies here JCDecaux. We wrote about the plans for the project at the beginning of last year. JCDecaux manages the city bus stops, takes care of them and, in return, rents advertising space on them. The city and the company have finally agreed and the connection is currently being expanded to other parts of the metropolis.
The city had to give JCDecaux the green light, but otherwise the cost of Wi-Fi is not covered by public budgets. After all, the company clearly called for this at the stops as part of its PR promotion. For JCDecaux, this is a project that will make its advertising space more attractive.
High-speed internet is now available at the 27 busiest stations. These are, for example, Náměstí Míru, IP Pavlova, Husinecká in Žižkov, opposite the Victoria Stadium and the like. Project WiPrague is to expand to more than 120 more stops during the weeks and to be as high as three hundred by the end of the year. JCDecaux does not comment on the exact costs, but there are tens of thousands of crowns lower for one stop.
Good speed
Compared to the pilot testing, the new stops have one novelty – in addition to the usual 2.4 GHz connection, there is also a better 5 GHz. JCDecaux does not connect stops via the optical network, but buys unlimited capacity via LTE. It advertises a maximum connection speed of around 70 Mb / s, but in our measurement (5 GHz) we actually managed to reach values around 56 Mb / s for download and 20 Mb / s for upload. With the proviso that no one else at the bus stop was using the connection at the moment.
The range of the signal is around 50 meters and at the edge of this area the speeds are already falling to values around 1 Mb / s. It can then be reached on a 2.4 GHz network at a speed of 30 Mb / s and 18 Mb / s. 802.11ac Wave 2 3 × 3 is used.
The good thing is that the connection is not limited in any way and you can use traditional services that you can use while waiting for the tram – streaming video from sources, listening to music from services and Spotify, downloading files. Given the misery of Czech mobile data limits, this may not be a bad service. JCDecaux also no registration.
The company probably has bigger plans for digitizing its stops. For example, he plans to install digital tables where he has route search set up. JCDecaux has not yet commented on whether digital advertising and the like will be available (in New York, street advertising can be bought programmatically, see our report).