Comunicatul de presa al EURALARM lansat dupa participarea domnului presedinte Enzo Peduzzi la sectiunea Politici nationale si europene a Expo-Conferintei SMART CITIES OF ROMANIA 2015 desfasurata in zilele de 21-22 octombrie 2015 la Universitatea Politehnica din Bucuresti.
Euralarm presents Smart Cities vision and PEARS project during conference on Smart Cities
Bucharest, October 2015 – Euralarm presented her vision on Smart Cities during a conference on this topic in Bucharest, Romania. Enzo Peduzzi, President of Euralarm as well as Liviu Mateescu represented the association. During the conference Liviu Mateescu, President of ARTS, presented and debated also Euralarm’s PEARS project and its importance during natural disasters.
Main organizer of the conference in Romania was ARTS, a member of Euralarm. More than 200 visitors, including professionals in risk assessment and standardization as well as company representatives and local authorities such as the mayor of Bucharest, ministers and the Politechnic institute of Bucharest chairman attended the conference.
Smart cities
Smart cities are currently a very important topic for Euralarm. According to a report by Frost & Sullivan they are expected to spend 1560 billion USD worldwide by 2020 on their smart infrastructures. These investments will be paid by taxpayers and by the users of these infrastructures. In addition, the increasing challenges coming from urbanization, demographic changes and environmental damage, need to be addressed urgently and all have an effect on the safety of the European inhabitants. Another reason is that, although some activities related to Smart Cities have been initiated, most of them have a very narrow scope and only focus on digital technology solutions, primarily for energy optimization and mobility. Many relevant functions are however neglected, such as political stability, environment and most importantly for Euralarm safety, security and resilience.
Safe and secure cities allow their stakeholders to plan and to function with a minimum of disruptive events due to crime and natural or man- made disasters. Some examples of these stakeholders and their needs are: citizens want lively and livable cities, enterprises want cities where their business can prosper and critical infrastructure operates want to deliver their services. Resilience is also a necessity, because it is about making cities better, for both the short and long-term. According to Enzo Peduzzi, Euralarm believes that cities without resilience cannot be truly smart. Euralarm defines City Resilience as the capacity of individuals, communities, institutions, businesses, and systems within a city to survive, adapt, and grow no matter what kinds of chronic stresses and acute shocks they experience.
Euralarm adds that the following facets, amongst others, are required to create truly safe, secure and resilient Smart Cities:
- A generally accepted definition of Smart Cities
- Standards and harmonized certification schemes
- Publicly accessible performance indicators and metrics
The holistic approach that Euralarm calls for requires safety and security solutions to be offered across all critical urban infrastructures, addressing the respective needs of those in charge and those the systems serve: municipal authorities, first responders and populations dependent on a functioning urban system. Only when the interconnected flows of people and goods, energy and data that characterize smartness are functioning efficiently and securely, the value of Smart Cities can be fully realized.
Feedback
The request of Euralarm to include safety and security in all smart city concepts was well accepted and echoed by many of the participants and presenters during the conference in Bucharest. It was also recognized that it requires specialists as represented by Euralarm to realize this. The city officials present during the conference particularly appreciated Euralarm’s call for independent and transparent KPI’s as given by international standards like ISO 37120.
PEARS project
Liviu Mateescu, President of the Romanian Association for Security Technique (ARTS), took the opportunity to present the PEARS concept. It is the second time when the PEARS project is presented in Romania. The project has learned that fire and security products not only can but also should be integrated into public alert systems. The extensive installed base could be easily upgraded to receive alert signals which could be utilized to activate audible and/or visual warnings. More sophisticated systems can convert public alert messages into intelligible voice messages or display the same message on PCs. Integrating existing safety and security systems into a public alert scenario could be a cost effective and rapid alternative to reach large parts of the population.
Euralarm, as the leading European trade association for electronic fire safety and security systems with its long experience in alarm management, proposes the following actions to increase the effectiveness of public alert scenarios:
- Integrate as many channels as possible in public alert concepts. Mobile phones are only one possibility. Use also e.g. GPS based navigation systems, TV channels, Internet, etc..
- Integrate existing fire safety and security systems as an additional channel. Since already tens of thousands of systems are installed the cost to build-up a channel is minimal.
- Domestic smoke detectors and security systems connected to Monitoring Stations are existing, 24h active channels to millions of private homes.
- Use standardization to create public alert systems which are compatible cross border and can alert the population on both sides of the border in case of an event.
Therefore Euralarm urges the European Union and all national stakeholders involved in developing public alert systems, to cooperate and share experiences, in order to safe costs in developing, deploying and maintaining the systems. Since unfortunately catastrophes do not stop at the border between two member states, standardization is the key to create a truly European Public Alert System and Euralarm is calling upon CEN/CENELEC and the European Union to support the industry in developing appropriate standards.
About Euralarm
Euralarm represents the electronic fire and security industry, providing leadership and expertise for industry, market, policy makers and standards bodies. Our members make society safer and secure through systems and services for fire detection, intrusion detection, access control, video monitoring, alarm transmission and alarm receiving centres. Founded in 1970, Euralarm represents over 5000 companies with an estimated cumulated revenue of 18 bn Euros. Euralarm members are national associations and individual companies from more than 17 European countries.
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