PRIJEDOR, SEPTEMBER 27 (ONASA) – In Prijedor, a city in the northwest of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the city administration realized how important it is to modernize the process of providing services to citizens.
Today, this city is famous as a successful example of digital transformation in our country. They implemented the DMS system eDocument, websites and a portal managed by the city from its own software, then Intranet GU, services 48 hours a day, virtual registrar, eInfo desk, and one of the prominent projects is GoParking.
“Following the elements of the city’s development vision, a decision was made on the adoption of the open data policy, then on the adoption of the Digital Map, work is being done on a feasibility study – the possibility of providing smart city services, as well as the new strategy of the City of Prijedor where digitization will play a very significant role”, says Danijela Dodoš, head of the Prijedor mayor’s office.
Prijedor is the first local government unit to introduce e-Government, through which more than 400 different requests can be submitted.
“We implemented the eCitizen software (with 6 modules infrastructure, Assembly, questions, councilors and mayor, public debates, surveying and register of procedures), a Gis system that we connected with DMS, Economics… The city of Prijedor implemented projects to install sensors for river water levels , noise and environmental pollution, it also has free Wi-Fi for citizens, and what we are particularly proud of is the open data portal, where we were the first institution in Bosnia and Herzegovina to open data in machine-readable form, which can be shared and re-shared. to use,” said Head of the Department for Information and Communication Technologies Admira Kličić, coordinator of the “Smart Cities – Towards Digital Transformation of Cities in BiH” project.
In Prijedor, they know that such development leads to an improvement in the quality, efficiency, and transparency of public administration, and thus to savings, both monetary and time, which are especially important for smaller communities with limited budgets. Their goal is to become a “smart city”, and they are aware that such cities require the transformation of society, development policies and a strategy developed according to the real demands and needs of citizens.
“It is very difficult to find funds for the implementation of many ideas that are certainly there in the city. We mostly rely on work with international organizations, as well as funds from our own budget, by introducing new technologies we try to save, and then redirect these funds to the next development project.” , explains the coordinator.
One of the projects that significantly helped in the digitization process is GoParking. By introducing parking sensors and a video surveillance system, citizens are enabled to quickly and easily, by downloading the application of the same name, find free parking spaces, have an overview of all parking locations, their capacities, zones, but also follow the path from the location where they are to the parking lot, then to monitor the billing time, choose the payment method (by SMS or via bank card), receive notifications that warn them that their parking ticket is about to expire and offer them the possibility of an extension.
“Out of a total of 720 parking spaces, about 250 of them are covered by sensors and cameras, and shown on the application, and our goal is to expand this system,” they explain from Prijedor, a city where, in the past two years, the number of parking tickets paid via SMS almost tripled.
The parking service, i.e. the toll controllers, were given the ability to scan vehicle license plates via mobile phone, issue academic warning tickets, and record violations in the system. Their work is made easier because all the data is in the system, so they can determine orders, create reports on the number of scanned tickets, violations, blocked cars, as well as observe the paths of movement and retention of parking attendants, issue of preferential parking tickets, tenant’s, disabled’s and all others that are defined in the City of Prijedor, as well as a whole series of other options that benefit the communal police as well.
The smart GoParking solution was designed and presented to this local community with around 25,000 registered vehicles by the company LANACO as part of the project “Smart cities – towards the digital transformation of cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina”, which was prepared and launched by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), the companies LANACO and DVC Solutions and Bit Alliance, the umbrella association of the IT sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“The city of Prijedor is an example of good practice and is always available to all local self-government units, as well as other institutions, to share their experience, to point out problems that arise during implementation, as well as to confirm the benefits of each implemented solution,” said Klicic, stating that they already cooperate with many cities and municipalities and share experiences, which is very important for further progress and the spread of successful practice because, as he states, if one local community has already gone through a process and all its initial stages, another can skip those steps and continue further to accelerate everyone’s progress.