A District Approach to Smart Mobility

Abstract

“As a Smart City district evolves, and its success as a business location of choice grows, we need to ensure that mobility challenges are addressed for all communities. Smart technologies are a major factor.” – Ronan Herron Ronan Herron had recently been appointed the Smart Dublin Coordinator with responsibility for Smart Sandyford and was travelling to its launch on the modern Luas light rail system. Ronan found himself marvelling at the changes to the Sandyford area since he first started working in the Council twelve years earlier: Gone was the old industrial landscape with pockets of sad-looking housing estates, and in its place was a vibrant business district with multiple household name multinational companies, nestled with modern residential areas. Sandyford was a short distance from Dublin city centre but just ten short years prior, few would have anticipated the economic and business transformation that had overcome this once maligned and side-lined district of Dublin. While Ronan had managed to get a seat on the packed Luas tram, he noticed multiple congested areas in and around the route to the launch. Clearly, this had become a very popular district indeed! Since starting in his post, Ronan had observed that the Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council (DLR), responsible for Smart Sandyford, was very excited about the future for the Sandyford district, anticipating (and indeed, planning for) significant growth in the number of businesses moving there, and additional residential areas. Ronan contemplated what impact this was likely to have on on-going mobility for everyone living and working in the district. Given his background in smart technologies, and Smart Sandyford’s position as a part of Smart Dublin, Ronan naturally found himself contemplating technology as a means to address Sandyford’s growing mobility challenges. He was on his way to launch Smart Sandyford, and surely, smart technology could contribute to solutions to those challenges. This Smart District offered a means to answer some of the pressing questions around mobility for Dublin: How might technology deployment improve mobility services? How would mobility solutions impact all stakeholders in the community? Can technology alleviate the impact of transport on the environment? How would the data needed to enable smart mobility be collected and analysed? What data would even be needed?