Bruges

About Bruges

Bruges is the capital city of West Flanders, a province in the Flemish Region of Belgium. The city has approximately 118,000 inhabitants and is known for its medieval architecture and picturesque canals.

A city with a history

The rich history of Bruges is reflected in its well-preserved buildings and monuments. The city’s historic center, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site, is home to numerous landmarks such as the Belfry of Bruges, the Basilica of the Holy Blood, various Churches and medieval buildings. Bruges is also referred to as the Venice of the North thanks to its many canals and its unquestionable, authentic charm.

A healthy and green future

The city takes a series of initiatives and plans to make city life greener and healthier. Together with its citizens, research, and private organization, Bruges wants to reduce local emissions of CO₂ by almost 50% in 2030. Additionally, several smart city strategies like smart parking sensors, crowd flow monitoring, water level monitors and air quality sensors are implemented to improve the quality of life of the citizens and enhance sustainability. The smart city data platform – Urban Sense, a collaboration between Bruges-Leuven-Roeselare, enables the city to define their policy based on data andimprove the efficiency and well-being of its citizens.

"The most challenging aspect of building a Smart City, in my beliefs, is to get the major’s neighbor on board, the regular citizen has to understand our Smart City and has to believe in its advantages. That’s why Brugge is investing in several smart solutions like digital meters for toilets, tellers to count the occupied spaces in a bicycle point and a tool that automatically handles the reservations of beach cabins. I believe being a Smart City isn’t always about gigantic and formidable technological inventions, smaller smart solutions can already have a great impact on a city."

Lode Nulens

ICT Manager at the City of Brugge

Our solutions

The VLOED-project

measuring crowd densities

Mobilize

Tackling traffic issues using digital twins

Bruges as part of Urban Sense

The data from Bruges is gathered on the Urban Sense platform, which is a consortium between two companies, Cegeka and Sirus, in collaboration with three cities, Bruges, Leuven and Roeselare. It is built to provide a data platform for cities and municipalities and truly unlock the value of all possible types of data. The platform is based on fiware generic enablers. It offers a variety of solutions: from analytical and visualization tools, data science and AI to developing applications and services such as data science, AI, and others. The data is based on shared data models and is delivered via open standards like NGSI-LD as this allows cities to closely collaborate with different parties to create even more innovative solutions to tackle future challenges. The Urban Sense consortium received the World Smart City Award and the Agoria Digital Society Award in 2022 with this project.