Page 40 - A U4SSC deliverable - Accelerating city transformation using frontier technologies

In focus – cultural engagement and entertainment using wearables - MONICA, Lyon

Lyon hosts the famous “Fête des Lumières” to celebrate the Virgin Mary in December each year. This
festival forms an integral part of the city’s culture, drawing in huge crowds. Such public gatherings,
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often in open-air settings, can be associated with a plethora of challenges including crowd safety,
security and noise pollution. IoT devices deployed include sound-level meters, cameras, smart glasses
and tracker apps. 109

As a part of the MONICA pilot project (funded by the European Commission), Fête des Lumières
utilised smart LED wristbands and smart glasses to enhance attendees’ overall experience. It was
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estimated that over 400 wristbands and smart glasses were provided to attendees during the event.
The wristbands come with a variety of features including easy registration, access to networking
events, location services, and circulating relevant updates. Furthermore, to ensure crowd safety and
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security, the wearables allowed for attendee tracking and an embedded application which could assist
with incident reporting, and generating light and sound signals in case of emergencies. To support
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the data from these wearables and multiple applications, MONICA deploys a secure, interoperable
cloud-based platform. This platform is also capable of analysing data and detecting critical incidents,
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thereby fostering real-time decision-making. The data collected from the event was anonymised before
creating an open data platform. Following the success of this pilot in Lyon, it is expected that the
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MONICA platform will be integrated into the plans for the Lyon smart city transition. 115

30 Accelerating city transformation using frontier technologies | A U4SSC deliverable