Project description
How smart cameras can keep cities clean
Some cities are very clean, and others are lined with litter and overflowing public trash cans. In most cities around the world, the amount of urban litter increases as the population grows. However, only a clean city is attractive and prosperous – from residents, tourism and the economy. In this context, the EU funded Clean City project will help cities improve urban cleanliness by cleaning better. Specifically, smart cameras combined with city vehicles or bicycles count litter by type, allowing city officials to target cleaning operations. For instance, monitoring can be conducted automatically by mobile phones thanks to intelligent vision algorithms. This saves on resources and also produces less CO2 emissions. Once in place, the project expects maintaining cleanliness to be cheaper compared with cleaning up.
Objective
A clean city is instrumental for the inhabitants’ wellbeing and sense of security. It creates value by increasing the city’s attractiveness for economic development and for tourism. Litter and cleaning have an impact on the environment. The cost of cleaning is estimated at 50 €/inhabitant/year or 10 to 13 billion € for Europe6. Paradoxically, according to our findings, a clean city has lower costs than a dirty one. There is a true potential to achieve higher cleanliness level at less cost. Our value proposition is a solution to improve urban cleanliness while reducing the costs and the environmental footprint of cleaning. What cannot be measured cannot be improved. We propose a timely monitoring of litter supporting the city’s investments, prevention and operations decisions. The city will allocate the cleaning means where it is necessary and engage the adequate means according to the soiling type. The monitoring is produced automatically by mobile cameras, which identify, classify and count litter thanks to intelligent vision algorithms. For a yearly fee of about 0,5 € per inhabitant, the city can significantly improve cleanliness while saving 5 € on its 50 € costs. The project has already raised genuine interest from important European cities and anti-litter organizations. Commercialization will start in Spring 2018. The fundamental critical success factor is the speed of market penetration: rapidly establish a reference panel and growth the number of customer cities. The municipalities have complex decision processes. Many hypotheses in the go-to market strategy have to be challenged in order to establish a viable plan: local offices vs distributors, collaborations and alliances, pricing. The potentially high secondary market of cleaning service providers has not been evaluated yet. It is the aim of this study to establish a success-oriented go-to market plan.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences computer and information sciences artificial intelligence
- engineering and technology civil engineering urban engineering smart cities
- engineering and technology electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering electronic engineering sensors optical sensors
- social sciences other social sciences development studies development economics
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.2.3. - INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs
MAIN PROGRAMME
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H2020-EU.3. - PRIORITY 'Societal challenges
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H2020-EU.2.1. - INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) H2020-EIC-SMEInst-2018-2020
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
1618 CHATEL ST DENIS
Switzerland
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.