Connecta València: Smart and sustainable tourism territory

The installation and development of all the elements foreseen in the project began in April 2022 and is scheduled to be completed in the first quarter of 2023.

The project aims to integrate the 266 municipalities of the province completely free of charge.

As explained by the deputy of Tourism, Jordi Mayor, it will generate a provincial network of data collection of the tourist impact or big data of the different destinations of the Valencian territory. This will allow them to be more competitive and attractive for tourism by having a greater knowledge of the sharing and mobility of visitors, and thus be able to offer better experiences to visitors, more sustainable and also appropriate to the demand of the moment. The project will also promote transparent and universal access to public data on services by citizens, visitors, professionals and companies, thus promoting the growth of industry and entrepreneurship, as well as interoperability between different administrations and agents.

The project facilities are as follows:

LoRA LPWAN network
A LoRA wireless connection with 500 antennas was installed. This provides connectivity to all the sensors that were installed throughout the province.

Bluetooth Beacons
37 Bluetooth beacons, a network of low-power radio beacons, were installed. They are complementary to the information totems and were installed at points where it is not possible to obtain power supply or the environmental impact does not allow the installation of totems, mainly in natural enclaves. These beacons will allow the progressive web application to offer the content or functionality (through the corresponding link to the content or an associated URL) associated with a beacon, using the beacon identifier.

Aggregate traceability across devices
1,500 devices were integrated that will allow the analysis of the mobility of tourists and citizens anonymously. Previously, the province had to buy the data from telephone companies in order to analyze the data and carry out studies, but these devices will allow the Diputació de València to perform aggregate traceability and other metrics such as counting people carrying mobile devices and moving around tourist attractions in the province of Valencia using non-intrusive devices and without physical contact with the people. The objective is to be able to dimension the services offered to citizens and visitors, being able to adapt the planning of activities and resources to the existing demands at all times. All aggregated data will be encrypted.

Air quality
1,300 air quality and noise sensors were installed to analyze the impact of mobility on the environment. The objective of these sensors will be to measure parameters such as noise pollution, levels of NO2, O3 and PM 2.5 and 10 particles.

Meteorological
Meteorological conditions have a high impact on environmental conditions. Therefore, 266 meteorological stations were installed (one per municipality) in order to obtain much more accurate analyses of relative air humidity, temperature, wind speed and direction, precipitation, barometric pressure, global and net solar radiation, as well as UV radiation meters.

Tourist totems and mobile application
The province of Valencia consists of several municipalities classified as being of tourist interest, but some of them do not have a tourist office. Therefore, 50 interactive tourist totems with wifi access were installed. These totems offer information about tourist attractions in the province of Valencia and allow the creation of a new relationship model between the Diputació de València, the citizen and the tourist. In addition, these totems offer a public wifi network so that citizens and tourists can access the contents through their devices, for example, they can download the provincial APP.

Progressive Web Application (PWA)
It provides tourists and citizens with information and functionalities that improve their stay in the tourist destination. The information of interest is adapted to the area from which the user connects, offering data on air quality, visitor density in the area, transportation alternatives to places of interest along with the valuation of polluting gases emitted by each travel option. The data is in real time.

OpenData Portal
The objective of the project is not just the mere collection of data and its subsequent analysis. The data will be published through an Open Data portal and will facilitate access and reuse of the data by third parties (citizens and companies). Initiatives such as Hackatons will also be carried out to disseminate the use and exploitation of such data. The objective will be to identify, attract and help generate talent in the design of mobile applications and reuse of open data.

Information integration
One of the main objectives is to consolidate in a single repository the data needed to perform a Big Data analysis from a variety of sources to provide a Tourism Intelligence tool that allows to have a better knowledge of the tourist. Several data sources will be used and will include data sources shared by other local and national administrations (Datos.gob.es, INE, Seggitur, Invat-tur, Visit Valencia, etc.).