Cisco to bring smart city expertise to Guadalajara

Iain Morris

October 8, 2014

Cisco has revealed it is to help the Mexican city of Guadalajara develop into a smart city, making use of technologies that will deliver improvements in traffic planning and waste management for local authorities.

The telecoms equipment giant says it will provide advice to the Guadalajara Ciudad Creativa Digital project, a national plan that includes investment in smart city technologies, to help Guadalajara become a connected city.

Under an agreement it has just signed, Cisco (San Jose, CA, USA) will share its insights into smart city developments worldwide and establish next steps for its work in Guadalajara.

The company says it plans to start working on a pilot project on city infrastructure, telecoms and urban services.

The pilot will see Cisco deploy a variety of smart city services, including smart public safety, smart parking, smart traffic, smart lighting and smart waste management.

Smart parking could help to massively reduce traffic congestion in busy areas by guiding drivers towards the nearest available spaces, while data on congestion could be used by authorities when planning the development of new infrastructure.

Besides these, Cisco also aims to develop various city administration services, including Wi-Fi systems offering multiple connections to city systems and a so-called urban command center.

Citizen services, meanwhile, would include what the company describes as a connected plaza allowing users to connect to the internet over a number of technologies.

“Technology plays a significant role in urban transformation, reinforcing the competitiveness of cities and its capacity to attract talent and investments,” said Jordi Botifoll, the president of Cisco in Latin America. “We are pleased to participate in this project with the city of Guadalajara, offering our experience designing smart cities and helping them to become the first creative cluster in the region working under this concept.”

This endeavor is part of Cisco’s strategy in Mexico to support the country in their development of smart cities nationwide,” he added.

Cisco now claims to have participated in more than 90 smart-city projects globally, including in the cities of Barcelona (Spain), Toronto (Canada), Hamburg (Germany), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and Guayaquil (Ecuador).