Tampere, Finland
Human-Centric Walkable City
Tampere is the 3rd biggest city in Finland and the most populated inland city in the Nordics. As with many city centres across Europe, the Tampere city centre is facing the threat of decline. The Tampere Sense of Safety survey (2021) revealed that residents felt least safe in the city centre area and in general, they found the place unattractive for pedestrians. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the problem and the recent energy crisis and inflation hamper the recovery. This Demo aims to revitalise the Tampere city centre to make it walking-friendly in order to bring back people and businesses while encouraging a healthy low-carbon lifestyle of citizens and reducing the city’s carbon footprint.
Demo objectives (DO)
DO1 City Planning and Decision Making with XR - Utilizing Extended Reality (XR) technologies (such as 3D models, Digital Shadows, Digital Twins and the Metaverse) as a provider to improve people-centric urban planning, data-driven public decision-making and strong urban regeneration processes. The aim is to create open and reusable digital assets that can be extended to support further development far beyond the scope of the Demo e.g., by adding new multi-layered data to the models. The XR demos in the project will (to the best extent possible within the project) leverage existing city IT infrastructure and digital solutions such as the city’s MS Azure data lake and IoT platform.
DO2 Testing innovative technology to support walkability and safety - Innovative methods, solutions and regeneration approaches will be tested and utilized in building sustainable, safe, resilient, inclusive, and accessible ‘Walking City’ concepts in the city centre area using digital elements and to include residents in the planning and decision-making processes through simulation and showcasing.
DO3 Study the possibilities of Metaverse in the city context - The possibilities of Metaverse are still unexplored opportunity for the City of Tampere. For the city the interconnected combination of multiple technologies and systems form a new kind of extended reality to operate in. A Digital Twin of the city centre, which will be developed provides an essential building block towards the city’s presence in the Metaverse – Cityverse.
DO4 Increased Citizen Participation - The aim is to build the understanding of the residents by utilizing Digital Twin models. This will be studied especially from the viewpoint of pedestrians and safe pedestrian city through physical, social, cultural, emotional, and sustainable dimensions.
DO5 Increased walkability and sustainability - Enhancing attractiveness of the city centre to increase the walkability and decrease GHG emissions and citizens carbon footprint.
List of proposed actions based on the analysis of the local challenges
1. Towards the metaverse – creation and utilization of digital twins.
2. Engagement of citizens in co-creation of walkable and safe city centre.
3. Use digital twin to simulate safety and CO2 emission levels related to people flows and to support the walkability.
4. Measure well-being and life satisfaction, domains of Environmental, Socio-economic and Safety related factors of well-being.
5. Economic incentives and campaigns for residents to increase walkability and reduce their own carbon footprint based on simulation results from the digital twin.
41000 inhabitants will benefit from the improved walkability of the city centre and low-carbon footprint will be achieved through the increased use of sustainable modes of transport (walking, cycling and public transport).
