One of the aims of ALMANAC is to demonstrate open and accessible public data in a city context which can be used for applications aimed at citizens and other stakeholders. To gain more knowledge about the design of such applications and best practice, ALMANAC looked towards experiences from existing Smart City projects such as the SmartSantander project.

- With more than 15,000 sensors and devices already installed in the city of Santander, the SmartSantander project provides a unique testbed and knowledge base for developing Smart City applications, explains Anders Skovbo Christensen, Senior Consultant from In-JeT.

The SmartSantander project envisions the deployment of more than 20,000 sensors in four different cities, exploiting a wide variety of technologies and several use cases. In Santander, use cases have been implemented in relation to environmental monitoring and management as well as to citizen oriented services such as guidance to available parking spaces, tagging points of interest as well as receiving and reporting special events.

To survey the main ideas and results of the Santander project and investigate opportunities for further collaboration, a couple of meetings were organised and held between the two projects in March 2014. ALMANAC was invited to the University of Cantabria where Dr Luis Munoz gave a presentation of the SmartSantander project followed by a demo tour of the city installations. ALMANAC also visited the SmartSantander control room at the University of Cantabria to see the gateway, sensor technology and overview screens, and to learn about the Santander experiences in installation and maintenance procedures.

- We also met with the Mayor of Santander, Iñigo de la Serna, who has been a prime initiating stakeholder of the Santander efforts in Smart City developments, says Anders Skovbo Christensen.

- All in all, ALMANAC was greatly inspired and educated by the meetings and several contacts have been established as a result. The first collaborative steps have already been taken by integrating live traffic data connections from the Santander platform into the first ALMANAC prototypes, he concludes.