Red.es
Ibiza Island Council
Kingdom of Spain
European Union
The customer and the challenge
Even a paradise needs protection
The island of Ibiza is a paradise with many faces. It’s not only a popular holiday destination with lively nightlife and sandy beaches but also a home to incredible flora and fauna. This includes almost a thousand flora species and a wide range of animals with 30 lizard-, 200 fish- and 70 shellfish species. The island is well-known for its pine forests and 80,000-year-old seagrass beds, which have been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites list since 1999. To preserve this ecological wonderland for the next generations, it’s crucial to make Ibiza a smart, secure and sustainable home and tourist destination.
Towards a safer, greener and smarter island
The Ibiza Regional Council (Consell Insular d'Eivissa) knew that digitisation would be the key driver for change. Digital solutions could help them offer a smoother stay to the island’s visitors, a safer environment to its citizens and a higher level of protection of its natural heritage. They already had several goals in mind, such as providing tourists with real-time information on beach occupancy, preventing fire outbreaks, monitoring pollution levels and putting an end to a decade of decline in the quality of Ibiza’s bathing waters.
Connecting all the digital pieces
The different solutions improving quality, safety and sustainability may seem unrelated, but they all have a common goal: making Ibiza a better place for its residents, tourists and environment. The Ibiza Regional Council needed help to facilitate efficient maintenance of the island and take the next steps to give this flourishing paradise the care it deserves. “Through technology, we’re aiming to do this more efficiently and effectively than ever before,” says Javier Torres, Vice President of the Ibiza Regional Council.
Vodafone Business collaborated with the Ibiza Regional Council and Red.es, a public entity that works with the Spanish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation and is in charge of the ERDF community funds (European Regional Development Fund), to help transform Ibiza into a smart island by connecting citizens, tourists and city resources through digital services and data.
How we helped them
Data-driven planning for carefree vacations
We’ve deployed a video surveillance system to monitor occupancy levels on the island’s most popular beaches in real time, based on anonymous data collected by IP cameras using 4G and sensors. This way, local authorities can control the number of people visiting these areas using the Vodafone Business Smart Cities platform. They can ensure that holiday makers can spend quality time on less packed beaches while preventing overtourism from putting the island’s environment and wildlife at risk. What’s more, on our smart platform, visitors can also look for free parking spaces and check public transport schedules near the beach where they’re headed. “Citizens, tourists, our workers and the environment – we all benefit through these innovations,” affirms Javier Torres.
No more pine trees burst into flames
When every second counts, early detection can be a matter of life and death. Fortunately, our surveillance system can be adapted to a wide range of environments, such as parks, squares, outdoor events and even forests. In the long run, four optronic cameras will cover 80% of Ibiza’s forest mass to help local authorities prevent large fires. Moreover, our geolocation system and route planning solution can support the emergency services with optimal driving routes to reach any location as quickly as possible.
Allowing the island to breathe
We’ve installed five marine buoys equipped with sensors which enable the authorities to measure water quality and detect problems caused by the dozens of boats anchored close to the shores. This helps the Ibiza Regional Council make more informed, data-driven decisions on the maintenance of the marine ecosystem to protect seabeds and preserve the island’s natural heritage. This way, tourists and citizens can also find out if the quality of the water is suitable for bathing before visiting the beaches.
Connecting for a better future
Our Smart Cities platform allows these solutions to talk to each other and operate in sync to provide an accurate and holistic overview on the island’s operations. “Through IoT and AI, real-time communication, data collection and analysis not only allow us to monitor each component of the island remotely but also help us make better and informed decisions to react quickly and efficiently,” says Arturo Rodríguez González, Deputy Director of Smart Territories at Red.es. And it’s just the beginning. As a next step of the Ibiza, Smart and Sustainable Destination project, we’re planning to deploy 16 information displays at bus stops and install 250 sensors to control the air quality across Ibiza.
And what about you? Can you manage a smart city through a single platform?
