Living Labs
Smart communities
Smart City Mississauga has a community based approach with its Living Labs. These labs are located around the Business Improvement Areas, and Downtown. These neighbourhoods provide opportunities for trying out new technologies in a real world setting. This allows the public to have a view on the projects and demystify technology. It also gives the city an opportunity to test new technologies and help prepare the city for the future through small scale testing prior to implementing at a large scale.
The kinds of projects that these Living Labs will support range from outdoor screens and smart benches, extended public wifi, 5G and other cellular technologies, smart intersections, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality for planning developments and cultural activities, and many more.
Mississauga currently has five Living Labs: Malton, Port Credit, Downtown, Clarkson, Streetsville.
Living Lab Projects
Mississauga currently has five Smart City Living Labs
Cities and neighbourhoods grow and evolve over time, as do broader factors such as technology, the environment, the economy. Smart City technologies are intended to meet the needs of each neighbourhood and the people that live and work there.
Downtown Living Lab
Port Credit Living Lab
Malton Living Lab
Streetsville Living Lab
Clarkson Living Lab
Tactical Urbanist Event 2019
Tactical Urbanist projects are low-cost, temporary changes to the built environment. Led by Mississauga’s Urban Design team, this pop up was designed as a part of the planning process for Living Arts Drive in Downtown Mississauga to quickly test out urban design standards for complete streets within the downtown core.
This project was a multi-departmental project. Smart City Mississauga’s contribution included the following:
- Smart Solar Bench
- Expansion of Wireless Mississauga
- eBikes (In partnership with the Environment Division)
- Outdoor Digital Screen
Screen Content: Public Art (Digital); Wayfinding; Celebration Square Events Calendar; Library Information; Event and Smart City Information; Downtown Strategy Engagement Form
District Wifi
Wireless Mississauga, free public wifi, is located throughout the city. Within the the Living Labs we have been expanding wifi and will continue to frow this service. Currently Port Credit and Downtown have extended public wifi in the Living Labs.
Technology is rapidly advancing and there are a number of advancements that are being included in, or applied to, the City of Mississauga’s parks system. Park-user-focused technology trends include Wi-Fi in parks and other interactive technologies. Provision of Wi-Fi is a growing trend. People want to stay connected to the world as they move around in the city. Municipalities throughout the world, including Mississauga, are starting to install Wi-Fi hotspots in parks. Interactive technology can include QR codes, which are posted on signs within the park boundaries or along trails. Some examples include: trail maps and fitness videos, location based mobile gaming and other mapping features. The second way to apply new technologies to parks is to use it for the benefit of the City through improved park data collection and using new technologies to create efficiencies in operations and maintenance. Mississauga has embarked on a number of information technology based protocols and Parks and Forestry staff use mobile devices on-site to collect park data and improve operational efficiencies. As well, maintaining updated Parks and Forestry inventories and facilities conditions assessments will help inform future decision.
