Dubai’s Silicon Park, the second greenfield pilot project of the Dubai Smart City initiative, is on schedule to be completed by 2018.

The AED1.1bn ($299m) project has reached key milestones since it was announced two years ago, said Muhammad Khaled al-Katheeri, executive vice-president, engineering and smart city, at the Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority (DSOA) on 22 March at a forum in Dubai.

The DSOA has already implemented a wireless network across 80 kilometres of roads. The next phase will comprise addressing the security layer of the network to tackle abuse of use, said Al-Katheeri.

Forty large waste bins fitted with sensors have also been deployed, which according to Al-Khatheeri have reduced the number of trips made by waste collection vehicles within its premised from 442 to 85 trips over a similar period. “The reduction in trips resulted in less cost, as well as lower energy consumption,” said Al-Katheeri.

The DSOA also plans to double the number of electric vehicle chargers to 12 over the short term. They have also implemented a smart lighting system in partnership with Du, where sensors are activated by the presence of vehicle traffic. The smart lighting system is understood to have resulted in 40 per cent cost savings in terms of maintenance and energy bills.

The first security drone, approved by the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, also caters to the DSO Park.

While all these smart city elements are being implemented within DSO’s controlled environment, the long-term plan is understood to include scaling up some if not most of these solutions, possibly for a city-wide implementation in line with the Dubai Smart City initiative.

The other greenfield pilot smart city project in Dubai is the Dubai Design District (D3), which is scheduled for completion by 2017.