The European lighthouse cities Rotterdam, Glasgow and Umeå and 3 follower cities, Brno (Czech Republic), Gdansk (Poland) and Parma (Italy)  come together to combine ICT, e-mobility and energy solutions to create sustainable urban spaces.  Such actions could bring profound economic, social and environmental impacts for the cities, resulting in a better quality of life (including health and social cohesion), competitiveness, jobs and growth

RUGGEDISED strives to: 

• Improving the quality of life of the citizens, by offering the citizens a clean, safe, attractive, inclusive and affordable living environment.
• Reducing the environmental impacts of activities, by achieving a significant reduction of CO2 emissions, a major increase in the investment and usage of RES and an increase in the deployment of electric vehicles.
• Creating a stimulating environment for sustainable economic development, by generating more sustainable jobs, stimulating community involvement in smart solutions and to boost start-up and existing companies to exploit the opportunities of the green digital economy and Internet of Things.

To achieve the aims, a key innovation challenge in all three lighthouse cities of RUGGEDISED is to arrange successful combinations of integrated smart solutions for energy and e-mobility (enabled by ICT platforms and open data protocols) and business models with the right incentives for stakeholders to invest and participate in a smart society. Specific challenges relevant for the lighthouse cities are:

• to manage peak load variation in thermal and electrical energy supply and demand;
• to develop appropriate cooperation structures and business models for exchange of energy;
• to develop Smart City (open) data platforms and energy management systems

Three lighthouse project aim to provide their citizens with:

• CO2 emission reduction, the total expected savings for the cumulative 182,000 m2 of buildings is 3.7 Mton CO2 per year
• Renewable energy system increase 4670 MWh and CO2 reduction of 3840 tCO2/year
• Reduce transport based CO2 emissions, on the basis of CO2 intensity of the European electricity grid of 540 g CO2/kWh
• More than 1900 new jobs