Smart City Project: Ghent

Ghent is the second-largest city in Belgium in terms of population. The lively capital of East Flanders is known for its medieval architecture, (street) art, and vibrant student life. With six universities and over 87,000 students, it is the largest student city in Flanders.

Nudging Down Night Noise (NDNN)

The historic city regularly receives reports of night noise and therefore launched a pilot project, together with Ghent University, the City of Leuven and KU Leuven, focusing on reducing night noise using smart sound sensors and nudging techniques. The City of Leuven previously carried out a similar noise monitoring project in collaboration with Sirus and Urban Sense. Co-creation sessions with local residents, partygoers and other stakeholders resulted in two concrete nudging solutions: LED sound displays and light projections on the ground with messages.

Real-time data processing

With the NDNN project, District09 (the ICT department of the City of Ghent) aims to reduce night noise in the city. Several sound sensors were installed in surrounding “pass-through streets” of the Overpoortstraat and the Vlasmarkt, where many people pass on their way to and from nightlife hotspots. These smart sound sensors detect noise peaks and measure both the number of decibels and the type of noise. An important detail: the sensors measure sound for analysis purposes, but do not store any audible recordings.

The sensors are installed by Munisense, while the underlying data processing mechanism is handled by Sirus. We developed a platform where data from the sound sensors (such as duration, volume and source) is processed in real-time. When an excessive noise peak is detected between 10 PM and 5:59 AM, a message appears on a LED display in the streets of Ghent, encouraging the bypassing people to lower their voices. Similar to a speed display showing a red, unhappy face when drivers exceed the speed limit.

Our data engineers developed a technical system that processes data almost instantly: only four seconds pass between the detection of a noise peak and the message appearing on the LED display. A remarkably fast response time for a complex process involving code translation, condition checks and error handling.

What's next?

The future brings many possible expansions. The Urban Sense platform is built, the logic is written, which means everything is ready to implement in additional use cases. This is exactly the strength of the Urban Sense platform: endless possibilities to capture, visualise and use data across different cities.

What did our Sirus developers think?

“The standardisation and harmonisation of the data was a fun part of the project. Reducing the response time to four seconds is something I am very proud of. In addition, the collaboration with all involved parties was very pleasant, and the project is physically visible in the real world. I already went out to test the installation myself.”

Hannes Dendoncker Data Engineer at Sirus

Ghent as part of Urban Sense

Ghent is part of the Urban Sense consortium, together with Leuven, Bruges and Roeselare. Within this collaboration, several Flemish cities are working together on the development of an urban data platform. Through this platform, cities can share data from their projects, allowing other cities to gain insights and develop similar initiatives.

Smart City Project

At Sirus, innovation is at our core. We strive to help build the Smart Cities of the future, and the citie of Ghent is now part of this innovative future. We are proud to be a part of this collaboration, and if you are to – be sure to follow us on LinkedIn for updates!

Interested to be a part of projects like the Smart City Project for Ghent? Learn more about Sirus’ Smart City Approach and don’t hesitate to take a look at our careers page!