The innovative smart city initiative Bristol Is Open has received unanimous support from the city council cabinet, enabling the University of Bristol’s research and council-owned infrastructure to come together for the first time.
As report by Bristol Business News last week, Bristol Is Open will manage the Open Programmable City project, a city-scale research infrastructure using fibre optic and wireless connectivity and high-performance computing. It is the first project of its kind in the UK, and puts Bristol at the leading edge of the smart city movement. 
The project will make use of part of the council owned BNet high speed fibre optic network and the University’s Blue Crystal High Performance Computer facility, a supercomputer capable of 200 trillion calculations per second.
In addition, Bristol Is Open will offer technology companies, research organisations and small and medium-sized enterprises the opportunity to experiment, learn and develop innovative solutions to many challenges of modern urban life.
Mayor of Bristol George Ferguson said: “I’m delighted to be able to announce the formation of this historic partnership between the city and the University. I firmly believe that this pioneering project has the potential to contribute massively towards developing solutions to vital issues such as mobility, health and energy efficiency in the city.”
“This is the perfect answer to my offer of Bristol as a laboratory for change. Through working collaboratively with our partner organisations we are blending research, technology and the fabric of the city to create a real world test bed unlike any other.”
Data captured from a variety of sensors in the city environment will create ‘Big Data’, a snapshot of the environment on a grand scale. Air quality, traffic movement, temperature, humidity, traffic signal patterns are all examples of the types of data that will captured. Applications capable of analysing and programming this data will develop in time from collaborative partnerships secured by Bristol Is Open.
