In order to involve citizens and interested parties with little affinity for digital media in the conceptual development of our Smart-City strategy, the "future streetcars" format was implemented in cooperation with Dresdner Verkehrsbetriebe (DVB) on January 14 and 17, 2023. Three regularly operating streetcars were transformed into idea labs where passengers were able to contribute their thoughts on Smart City Dresden "on the move".
The ideas and comments were noted on sticky notes in the streetcar and pinned to posters on the carriage windows. Three streetcar lines were selected for the format with the DVB, which cross all the targeted model districts and also reach the outskirts of the city (north-south line 7, east-west lines 1, 10/12). In this way, passengers from all neighborhoods as a cross-section of the population could be included in the problem analysis and made aware of the model project Smart City .
The focus of the survey was not on Smart-City issues in the narrower sense, but on relevant topics of neighbourhood development and district design, e.g. sustainability, social justice or digitalization. The future streetcars delivered extensive and sometimes unexpected results. A total of eight streetcar journeys were accompanied and over 455 statements and suggestions for Smart City were collected.
DVB and the WISSENSARCHITEKTUR Laboratory of Knowledge Architecture were supported in the campaign by the metro_polis initiative as a civil society actor.
