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Good practice Imported

Sentilo — Barcelona Province's Open-Source Sensor Platform Scaling to 300+ Municipalities

Spain · Barcelona · See the Spain profile · See the Barcelona profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 27% 76/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Barcelona's open-source Sentilo sensor platform, launched in 2012, now underpins the Diputació de Barcelona's 'Smart Region' — over 300 municipalities sharing 10,350+ sensors for air quality, noise, mobility and water, after a 6-town pilot proved the shared-infrastructure model.

300+
Municipalities using the platform (September 2024)
10,350
Connected sensors (November 2024)
6 towns
Pilot towns before province-wide scale-up
Sentilo — Barcelona Province's Open-Source Sensor Platform Scaling to 300+ Municipalities

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Diputació de Barcelona / Barcelona City Council (Institut Municipal d'Informàtica)
Period
2012–2026 (ongoing)
Region (NUTS)
ES511
Keywords
smart city, IoT, open data, open-source software, urban experimentation

Context

Sentilo is an open-source sensor-and-actuator data platform launched in November 2012 by Barcelona City Council's Institut Municipal d'Informàtica as the backbone of its 'CityOS' smart-city programme, publishing its code openly so any city can adopt it.

Activities

The Diputació de Barcelona adopted Sentilo for a shared, multi-tenant 'Smart Region of Barcelona' programme, first piloting it in six towns — Mataró, Vilanova i la Geltrú, Igualada, Manresa, Granollers and Vilafranca del Penedès — before scaling province-wide across noise, air-quality, mobility, waste and water sensing.

Results

By September 2024 the shared platform covered more than 300 municipalities, and by November 2024 the province-wide deployment had reached 10,350 connected sensors, with continued development into 2026 including a noise-sensor homologation scheme and trials of Apache Superset for data visualisation; the platform won the 2016 Open Awards prize for most innovative open-source software.

Conclusions

No independent evaluation of cost savings or service outcomes attributable to Sentilo was found, so while its adoption scale is well documented, its measurable real-world impact beyond deployment numbers remains unproven.

Implementation
Indicative cost
High (€500k–€5M)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
Institut Municipal d'Informàtica technical/development staff, OpenTrends (platform developer), Diputació de Barcelona provincial IT coordination team

Conditions for success

  • piloting first in a small number of towns before province-wide scale-up
  • an open-source, multi-tenant architecture letting many municipalities share one platform
  • a REST API design enabling heterogeneous municipal sensor networks to interoperate

Where it fits

Governance type
provincial/municipal government-led open-source platform
Scale
province-wide (300+ municipalities)
Income level
high-income

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes ERDF — European Regional Development Fund Digital Europe Programme

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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