The application Ibiza Smart Island was going to be one of the stars of the summer season that is now history. By the beginning of the summer it was planned to be fully operational so that both visitors and Ibizan neighbors have at their fingertips a practical and simple tool to see online the capacity of the beaches, the air quality and even the water temperature; to know the occupancy of the parking lots; to have available a system of prevention and early detection of fires; and information from environmental sensors . However, beyond the fact that the website is online and the app can be downloaded to any cell phone, the platform is far from having all the promised information available.
Ibiza Smart Island: one year of extension
From the Consell de Ibiza have confirmed to La Voz de Ibiza that “we are very much on top of this, but we can do nothing but follow up and report the failures that we find”. The tender has been awarded by Red.Es of the Government of Spain in the framework of the Smart Territories Plan in July 2021, so the Consell Insular is a “luxury spectator” of the development. Faced with delays in implementation, the national administration has granted an extension for another year. “We are not responsible until we do not receive it,” clarified from the Consell to this media, something they will do only “when everything is finished. It is very advanced but not all finished“. In this regard, they explained that “we have gone to check all the totems one by one, we are looking at all the parking screens one by one and making suggestions for correction of the mathematical formulas that are applied in the system of counting people on the beaches to make them more accurate”. In the meantime, some failures have been reported regarding the formulas to count the occupation of the beaches or some bus stops that do not have a good connection. In addition, for weeks Red.es has told the Consell that it will implement the parking system that is still being tested and is not available on the web or in the mobile application. In the meantime, the Consell is moving forward with a tender for the maintenance of the elements already installed.
Partial operability
The web site presents partial information. For example, of the nine connected parking lots, all appear with “temporarily unavailable information” regarding occupancy. As for the island’s beaches, there are 47 monitored points, in addition to details of the characteristics of each one, such as dimensions, orientation, substrate, seabed and environment.
Almost one third of them (15) do not present information on capacity. Meanwhile, most of them do not have air quality and water temperature available yet. Of the 23 environmental sensors installed in different parts of the island , 21 are working properly.
No early fire detection
However, at the site there is still no trace of the “System of prevention and early detection of fires” included in the project, by which it was planned to install “4 optronic systems with video analytics in: Sant Josep and Sant Llorenç, Sant Antoni and Sant Joan”. As announced, “the objective of this component is the implementation of a surveillance system for the prevention and early detection of fires on the island of Ibiza”. In the same situation is the “Marine environmental sensorization” section to measure the quality and different parameters of the sea water, by means of sensors placed in five marine buoys, located in different points of the island: Illots de Ponent Nature Reserve, Porroig beach, Ses Salines Natural Park, Tagomago marine reserve and Portinatx beach. This has the purpose of “protecting the marine fauna and flora (in particular posidonia), of those phenomena that affect the ecosystem in a direct way and consequently allow the implementation of actions aimed at protecting the natural heritage of Ibiza”. The application is expected to be fully operational by next summer season.
The award
The project was awarded to the Joint Venture (UTE) formed by Vodafone and Kapsch TrafficCom, with a budget of 5,058,194 euros, which won over nine other bidders for the “most economically advantageous offer taking into account the criteria contained in the specifications”. The tender was awarded in mid-2021. July 9 of that year was set as the agreement date, while the contract term was 29 months, while the supply execution term was two years. However, the latter was later extended to 27 months following a modification of the contract Supply for the Development of the Ibiza Smart and Sustainable Tourism Initiative. There, some technical issues concerning the connections of the devices were also changed. In addition to a global execution period, the technical specifications established different deadlines for the individual execution periods.
What the project is about
Ibiza Smart Island is part of the set of initiatives promoted by Red.es within the Smart Territories Plan, a program of actions in which “new technologies and their practical applications in everyday life are improving, as in Ibiza, the tourist experience in other parts of Spain such as Nijar (Almeria), Sanxenxo and O Grove (Galicia) and Adeje (Canary Islands), among others”. At the time, the Consell Insular de Ibiza reported that a global strategic plan called Ibiza, the Smart Island, “in accordance with the objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy, which proposes a smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, in which ICTs are the vehicle to achieve an island with effective and efficient public services; a citizenship and business network interconnected with the world, with a diversified tourist experience and with guaranteed resources and protection of the territory”, as detailed on its website. Under the axes of a “friendly, comfortable and fully connected” island, it aims to offer “efficient and effective public services that improve the lives of people living in Ibiza and tourists”. In addition to a “smart, adaptable, fresh, beautiful, elegant island, a Smart island“. “From this global strategic plan, specific actions have been extracted, making up the Ibiza, Smart and Sustainable Tourism project in order to be eligible for the call of the Red.es entity of aid for the development of the National Plan of Smart Territories for the Digital Agenda for Spain (Smart Tourist Destinations),” details the Consell.
Awarded
Although the platform is not yet 100% operational, in May 2023 it received one of the awards from the Spanish Association of Telecommunications and Information Society Users (AUTELSI).
