An investment of 3.7 million euros will fund maximum four pilot projects focusing on an interdisciplinary approach to developing innovative solutions. These projects aim to ensure long-term sustainability and scalability. Each initiative will promote international collaboration, involving at least one piloting city from Estonia and one from another country.

Discover the exciting lineup of finalists and their innovative ideas!

Lighting Nanogrids

• Solution lead(s): Andrei Blinov, Toivo Varjas and Tarmo Korõtko from TalTech; Dmitrii Ingi from Aalto University.
• Pilot cities: Tallinn and Kuressaare, Estonia; Jablonec nad Nisou, Czech Republic.
• Urban challenge: Efficient street lighting
• Potential commercialisation partners: Huna srl, Solintel OÜ

This solution addresses the challenges of street lighting to transform its traditional on/off model into a highly versatile, flexible concept — a street lighting nanogrid.

To deliver optimal level of performance both in terms of energy consumption and citizen comfort, the public lighting needs to be able to adapt to various outdoor conditions in a more flexible way than simple toggling operation.

Dimming and adjustment of colour temperature made through informed, automated decisions can increase both safety and power consumption of the public lighting.

Since street lighting infrastructure typically experiences long periods of inactivity, creating an opportunity to repurpose these assets for additional services, e.g. charging stations for various mobility devices. Implementing these changes would require the development of advanced control and management systems to efficiently monitor and allocate resources.

Additionally, with energy efficiency being a top priority for municipalities, transitioning to DC-powered feeders could be a key strategy for reducing energy consumption, while also improving energy quality.

Smart Water Traffic System

• Solution lead(s): Inga Zaitseva-Pärnaste, Pentti Kujala, Tarmo Soomere, Heiko Herrmann from TalTech.
• Pilot cities: Pärnu, Estonia; Joensuu, Finland
• Urban challenge: Water traffic on the river
• The Smart Water Traffic System will utilize a network of buoys and digital panels powered by renewable energy sources, such as sonar and/or wind.

These buoys will collect operational data on river traffic, including the density of watercraft and their speeds, as well as hydrometeorological conditions such as wave activity and weather. This data will be processed in real-time and made available to users through multiple channels:

• Mounted Digital Panels. Large LCD panels placed strategically on the riverbanks and bridges will display critical real-time updates, including speed limits, weather conditions, wave activity, event schedules, and safety advisories.
• Mobile Application. A user-friendly mobile application, developed as part of the project, will deliver the same real-time information directly to river users’ devices, enabling them to stay informed even while on the move.

Natural Hazard Resilience Toolkit for Cities

• Solution lead(s): Luiza Schuch de Azambuja and Wolfgang Dieter Gerstlberger from TalTech; Edimara M. Luciano from PUCRS in Brazil.
• Pilot cities: Haapsalu and Kuressaare, Estonia; Porto Alegre, Brazil.
• Potential commercialisation partner: CogniCity OSS
• Urban challenge: Smart communities’ toolkit for enhanced flood resilience

Natural Hazard Resilience Toolkit for Cities will be collaboratively developed to support timely crisis management decision making based on CCI principles.

As information is the most important resource, our solution integrates locally generated data from both sensors (e.g. in case of flood, detecting the changes in water level and direction), and the information provided by citizens experiencing the situation. Both technical and non-technical elements will be developed for the toolbox.

The CCI platform helps to bridge the bottom and top–level information flows, allowing to analyse locally produced data on the evolving situation on a larger scale and thus, gain better situational awareness for more efficient decisions on all levels.

Through empowering citizens in both, analysing the situation with the data at their disposal, and simultaneously being the provider of data, the issue of timely communication and decision-making in severe natural hazard caused crisis such as floods can be better managed by cities.

Reusing old buildings

• Solution lead(s): Simo Ilomets, Ergo Pikas and Wolfgang Dieter Gerstlberger from TalTech.
• Pilot cities: Tallinn and Valga, Estonia; Cēsis, Latvia.
  In addition, Hundipea Real Estate Development company is involved.
• Urban challenge: Reusing old buildings

The digital circular construction platform will tackle and solve circular construction obstacles in terms of organisational (on private sector, city, as well as state levels) technical, legal, environmental and economic aspects, bearing in mind digitalisation of construction sector.

The solution helps to manage the whole process, starting with pre-demolition auditing of a donor building and ending up with taking a transfer building into service.

Tree City

• Solution lead(s): Henna Fabritius from TalTech.
• Pilot cities: Tallinn, Estonia; Helsinki, Finland; Brussels, Belgium.
• Potential commercialisation partner: Herbarium.ai OÜ
• Urban challenge: Urban underground infrastructure and tree roots

TreeCity will produce algorithmic 3D models of tree roots for urban digital twins, together with data collection and model updating procedures, root growth prediction models and solutions for city data formats and interoperability.

The models will complement aboveground algorithmic 3D tree models, help to model the life and well-being of trees, and allow city stakeholders to view, use and study tree root systems and their needs via 3D city models, digital twins and VR/AR applications.

AI-Powered Roads Monitoring Solution

• Solution lead(s): Juhan Ernits, Uljana Reinsalu and Jeffrey Tuhtan from TalTech.
• Pilot cities: Tartu, Estonia; Burgas, Bulgaria; Kuldiga, Latvia.
• Urban Challenge: AI for detecting street markings

The AI solution for automated street markings detection for the purpose of automated inventory of their state and scheduling of markings renewal.

In the data model, orthographic photos from the drone and 360-degree photos will be used with respective projections together with laser scanning point cloud data, acquired by land based mobile mapping.

This multi-view, heterogeneous dataset will allow to create a precise and timely inventory of street markings, while keeping the costs under control by reusing data gathered.

Members of the evaluation committee evaluate the applications based on the evaluation criteria within their competence by May 31, 2025. The winning pilot projects will launch on September 1, 2024.

The implementation of pilot projects is funded by the European Regional Development Fund and the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research through the project “FinEst Targa Linna tippkeskuse piloodiprogramm“.