Smart City 

Updated August 2022

Following our Smart City seminar held for key stakeholders in March 2019 with keynote speaker Peter Auhl, the former Chief Information Officer of the City of Adelaide, Wagga Wagga City Council announced it will pursue a Smart City Strategy.

During May 2019, Committee for Wagga participated in workshops with the State Government Department of Premier & Cabinet and their consultants, to contribute to the shaping of digital connectivity for the City. Committee for Wagga was given the opportunity to make a presentation at the stakeholder workshop, outlining Committee for Wagga’s history with Smart City from 2014 through to 2019, our adoption of the City of Adelaide as a benchmark case study and our view as to how the provision of digital connectivity for regional centres and the roll out of smart city strategy could occur and how it can apply to Wagga Wagga as a Proof of Concept city. The project is aligned to and references the economic vision growth target of a population of 100,000 people.

In 2020 the NSW Government committed $100million from the Snowy Hydro Legacy Fund for the ‘Gig State’ project which aims to deliver metro-level digital connectivity to regional NSW via fibre-to-the-premises and high-speed open access wireless infrastructure. Wagga Wagga was one of seven cities identified as a scoping study for the project which would see a data hub established in the city, and fibre-to-the-premises solutions for Bomen, the CBD and the Northern Growth Area. Unfortunately Wagga Wagga was ‘dropped’ from this project in 2022 as at that stage Wagga Wagga was considered to have metro-equivalent speed and prices.

Wagga Wagga’s connectivity has been improved through projects such as upgrades via the Federal Governments Business Fibre Zone and the fibre network at the Bomen Industrial Park.

Committee for Wagga looks forward with optimism to the roll out of strategies and initiatives that will see the use of technology to significantly advance the City’s digital connectivity and improve the liveability of the city.

Background

Smart City infrastructure encompasses a variety of innovations featuring technology to improve a city’s efficiency and liveability. For example, technology can be introduced to benefit traffic management, potentially reducing latent parking spaces and improving traffic flow in areas of high congestion during busy periods. 

Wagga Wagga is well placed to implement key elements of smart city infrastructure such as public access to Wi-Fi. Establishing a Wi-Fi network requires fibre ports to be located at regular intervals within a specified area, ideally elevated to improve signal quality and line of sight. Investment in this infrastructure has been completed as a requirement of the CCTV network initiated by Committee 4 Wagga and installed in 2015, therefore the CCTV poles can be utilised to reduce the capital costs required to establish the network. 

Australia has been quick to embrace smart city technology with many cities introducing public Wi-Fi in busy retail precincts including Newcastle, Launceston, Canberra, Wollongong, Ballarat, Bendigo and Adelaide. The networks enhance the social and economic environment of retail precincts and public spaces by encouraging increased activity.