The city of Santander is the capital of the Cantabria region in the north of Spain and has a current population of approximately 173,000 inhabitants. From the Department of Computer Systems and Communications belonging to the City Council, consisting of 15 technical staff and 9 foreign technicians, mainly manages and coordinates are the following tasks: Infrastructure management in data processing and communications, so that all municipal services carry out their functions by using new technologies. Deployment and management of networks and communications: voice lines and data transmission, perimeter security, Internet access and e-mail, servers, microcomputers and corporate databases.

In recent years, the city of Santander has moved into the vanguard of smart cities, improving public services and developing policies oriented towards its citizens and the stimulation of a new business model of productivity for the city.

At the municipal level, innovation is conceived as a transverse area to other areas of governance, coordinating the incorporation of new technologies with municipal services, which leads to an improvement in the services.

The city participates in diverse initiatives related to smart cities. Among them, the SmartSantander project has established a before and after in the way of conceiving and organizing innovation in the city. Thus, Santander is well-known as a unique living lab in which to experiment with new technologies, applications and services.

A sustainability model has been developed based on the creation of a City Platform. All the urban services must be integrated into it, as they are tendered, as has occurred with the waste management service, with the aim of developing true intelligence in the Smart City.

Ayuntamiento de Santander has experience in working on proposing changes in regulations from its point of view as public body. It has also experience in the promotion and dissemination of the results of the project in press releases, conferences, TV municipal bus channel, municipal website, newspapers and in its Smart City Santander Demonstration Centre.  The political impulse from the Santander Smart City is very important, participating in several workshops and international congresses. It is outstanding its dissemination ability through RECI (the Spanish Network of Smart Cities).  Santander is leading this network, in which currently 65 Spanish cities share experiences and strengthen mutual cooperation to develop common strategies.

As a result of different initiatives in which the city participates, an open innovation ecosystem has been created in which the citizens participation is allowing a more lively and co-creative society. Citizens’ awareness and engagement groups will be involved if it were necessary.

It has also expertise in implementation of Smart City service trials (tests) that will be connected to the already deployed infrastructure as well as in conjunction with other city infrastructures.

Finally, the Santander City Council is deeply committed with the integration of the smart city concept in Santander.  This commitment can be seen materialized in actions like the integration of city services in the Smart Santander platform by the modification of City Council procedures.

Role in the project

Santander will mainly participate to project and pilots requirements, test and validate the PoSeID-on platform and contribute to the dissemination and the liaison activity.