GoDoWorks at the 2021 Smart Cities Meeting – Uruguay

The seventh Smart Cities Meeting took place, run by the Sustainable and Smart Development Department of the Municipality of Montevideo. The event is a space for cooperation and exchange built around technology and public management.

This year's theme was “Public innovation for sustainable development” and it brought together the technology ecosystem of the city and the region, with local and international panelists presenting their experience with original, intelligent solutions and how those added value to cities and, above all, to citizens.

The director of the Division of Public Spaces and Buildings at the Municipality of Montevideo, architect Martin Delgado, spoke about the ABC Sidewalks Program and the technology they built to meet the goals of the project, which aims to repair the city's sidewalks in a joint effort with residents, grounded in transparency and collaboration.

The director of the Division of Public Spaces and Buildings at the Municipality of Montevideo, architect Martín Delgado, spoke about the ABC Sidewalks Program and the innovative tools they built to achieve the goals of this large-scale sidewalk repair plan for Montevideo.

One of the program's main challenges is the sheer volume of sidewalks needing repair. The survey, carried out with the help of the geomatics service, produced a map showing that Montevideo's built sidewalk surface covers roughly 7 million square meters of paving, of which 25% needs repair.

That affects the urban quality of one of the main shared spaces, causing problems of accessibility, cleanliness and safety.

Other major challenges the program faces:

1. How do you centralize the survey information so it can be acted on?
2. How do you manage residents' applications?
3. How do you track the works?
4. How do you communicate the results back to residents?

The solution the Municipality of Montevideo needed had to scale to the city's 140,000 plots with sidewalks.

Solving the main challenges: geo-management software

To meet those goals, they adopted GoDoWorks geo-management for the sidewalk survey in the program's first phase. Survey teams went out with tablets, covered the 4 zones and completed the survey of all 140,000 plots.

Delgado noted the work could be done quickly thanks to the GoDoWorks software, adapted to the program's needs.

GoDoWorks let the teams not only create and complete a form with data on site, but also upload in an orderly way the sidewalk photos that make up the interface residents can view.

Delgado also stressed the benefit GDW brought to real-time tracking of the survey and the ability to identify each surveyor as they worked.

The database that resulted made it possible to give residents individual information and to produce a set of maps that can be used for future programs and initiatives.

GDW also brought the benefit of performance assessment, information that can be linked to other applications, and a solution that scales.

With this, GoDoWorks strengthens its position as a key technology for smart city development.