SMART CITY, FUTURE CITY

The City of Parramatta is meeting the challenges of the future by leveraging the opportunities using data, information and technology.

Architects rendering of the City of Parramatta Skyline if all current development approvals and design awards are constructed. Illustrated is the city at dusk viewed aerially from the west with the stadium and Parramatta Park in the foreground. The image portrays a balance of greenspace and technology.

About Smart City, Future City

The City of Parramatta Council met this challenge in 2015 by becoming the first local government in New South Wales to adopt a Smart City Masterplan to leverage opportunities associated with technology, data and information. Council is currently working to deliver on many of the initiatives outlined in the Masterplan. 

The Program 

Work continues on a range of activities including: 

  • Smart City projects that improve planning and decision-making by using data as a tool.
  • Future City projects that position Parramatta for future challenges and opportunities.

The program aims to build research, data collection and analytics capabilities to improve organisational efficiency and customer experience. 

Projects

Scroll through some of the featured projects.

Architects rendering of the new developed Melrose Park.

Climate responsive neighbourhoods

Smart cities and suburbs grant

This project will pilot the use of a range of sensors to capture, analyse and visualise environmental data including temperature, humidity, air quality, noise, and stormwater. 

An initial environmental device with multiple sensors and a gateway has been installed to allow messages to travel from the sensors.

Illustrated is a digital sensor that looks like a Bee Hive hanging in the branches of a tree to capture, analyse and visualise environmental data including temperature, humidity, air quality, noise and water run-off. 

Smart Park

Management and maintenance automation

In Doyle Ground, North Parramatta, sensors are monitoring soil moisture, water usage, bins, temperature and wind speed.

A gateway has been installed to allow messages to travel from the sensors. The data collected from the sensors will inform future park management and maintenance. 

Image of the HMAS Parramatta Bell. Clicking the link at the bottom of the story redirects you to a 3rd party website where the historical bell can be viewed in 3D. Illustrated in the 3D rendering are the names of babies born to the crew.

Digitising Heritage in 3D

Stories of rare and unique artefacts

A critical pathway to evolving Parramatta into the future is understanding the past. Storytelling is of paramount cultural importance. Digitising some stories will promote greater awareness and preservation.  

Each item was selected based on the historical connection to Parramatta and the online storytelling opportunity. 

View 3D Digital Heritage Projects
Illustrated is the home page screen of the City of Parramatta Parking Finder. Users enter a destination and arrival time and the website returns nearby parking lots

CBD Parking Finder

Know where to go

The new interactive Parking Finder helps people to locate potential parking spaces before they leave home.

The Parramatta CBD Parking Finder provides information about on-street and multistory car parking in the Parramatta CBD including how long you can park and costs.

In a first for New South Wales, the Parking Finder also shows all on-street accessible parking spaces, complete with photographs and rating, and provides entry height details for multistory car parks. 

CBD Parking Finder
Illustrated is a search results map for safe places to park around a school in Parramatta. Streets with safe parking are illustrated in green while those with with questionable safety are yellow and dangerous parking in red.

Safe School Parking Finder

Park safely and legally around schools

The Safe School Parking Finder is an online tool covering 60 schools in and around Parramatta. The interactive site is designed for pre-journey planning and shows parents and carers where they can safely and legally park around their child’s school.

The Safe School Parking Finder is a map-based website available in 15 different languages: Arabic, Armenian, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Dari, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Indonesian, Korean, Persian (Farsi), Punjabi, Tagalog (Filipino), Tamil, and Telugu.

Safe School Parking Finder
Image of an temperature sensor in a local tree that gathers data and feeds it back to a central database.

Benchmarking Urban Heat

Environment monitoring of the City

The OATH (Outdoor Ambient Temperature Hierarchies of Parramatta) environmental monitoring project is a collaboration between Western Sydney University (WSU) and the City of Parramatta Council. More than 120 temperature sensors were installed to monitor variations in temperature. 

At the same time, City of Parramatta Council has planted more than 1000 trees on streets and in playgrounds. Live weather can be viewed as reported through a mini-weather station installed in Centenary Square.

View Live Weather From Centenary Square

Parramatta's $20 Billion Dollar 5-Year Future

An investment in knowledge pays the greatest dividends.

Future Development