Smart  City 2.0: Catania to be a  smart ,  digital ,  sustainable  city

Catania - The President of ANAS Gianni Vittorio Armani and Mayor Enzo Bianco signed a memorandum of understanding to identify the urban innovation activities aimed at promoting energy efficiency, sustainable mobility, the digital agenda and urban governance on October 18 in Palazzo degli Elefanti, Catania. The objective is to make Catania one of the first Smart Cities in Europe. "The Smart City of Catania is a project in synergy with the Catania Smart Road Bypass project to implement next-generation services and systems for citizens, tourists, companies and local administrations", explained ANAS president Armani. Attending the meeting were Ugo Dibennardo, ANAS Director of Operations and Local Coordination, and Fabio Finocchiaro, Director of Maintenance and Technical Services of the Local Government of Catania, among others. "ANAS has been focusing on research and Information and Communication Technology for many years", added Armani. "Vehicles are evolving, and it is only right for roadwork investments to concern civil infrastructures as well as experimentation and technological innovation. We will be working together with the local government to turn Catania into a Smart City 2.0: connected, safe and green. These are the same objectives as the ANAS Smart Road project".
The national Smart Road plan has already been kicked off. The A2 "Autostrada del Mediterraneo" will be the first in Italy. The goal is to gradually extend these technologies to the entire ANAS road and highway network, to promote car-road communications to the benefit of safety and ensure quick access to mobility information and connectivity services. The ANAS national plan also includes turning the A19 "Palermo-Catania" into a Smart Road, with an investment of 20 million Euro, in addition to supplementary maintenance works for upgrading and increasing safety adding up to 870 million Euro. With the memorandum sealed with the local government of Catania, ANAS is providing its smart road experience and know-how to the Smart City project, contributing to creating, designing and implementing services to be developed with the local government. Specifically, the Catania Bypass - one of the ANAS roads with the most traffic in southern Italy, which handles peaks of 100,000 vehicles/day during some periods of the year - will be equipped with a Smart Road system turning it into a technological backbone, communication channel and big data collector from and to the Smart City. "The Catania Bypass handles the traffic of a real metropolitan city, and consequently ANAS will be investing major resources in it", said Bianco. "Over time, the Bypass will have three lanes in each direction and it will soon equipped with a very advanced technological system, which will include the possibility of using the third lane for travel during traffic peaks except for when it is being employed following an accident or breakdown. Furthermore, we will offer Wi-Fi services connected to the rest of the city to provide information on traffic, queues and empty spots in car parks. ANAS has expressed their intention to take on the service part and to build a roundabout at the junction between the Bypass and the airport road".