In the blink of an eye, Helsinki is dodging a blackout, thanks to an invisible conductor: City Information Modelling CIM , orchestrating a precious urban dance.
By integrating data from multiple services — intelligent lighting, waste management systems and water efficiency — this technology transforms everyday challenges into opportunities for innovation. As in Helsinki one morning in a city that has adopted CIM, traffic lights adjust in real time to optimise traffic flow, reducing waiting times and emissions.
Smart buildings talk to each other, adjusting energy consumption based on weather forecasts and current occupancy. This scenario, once part of a science fiction narrative, is now everyday life in a handful of cities around the world, thanks to CIM. CIM acts as the nervous system of smart cities, enabling integrated and intelligent urban management that can include technologies that have already been consolidated, such as BIM and GIS.
Through detailed modelling of city information, this system allows a complete visualisation of the urban environment, paving the way for more effective management of resources, services and infrastructures. It is a technological approach that creates detailed digital models of cities, combining architectural, geographical and infrastructure data.
These models not only visually represent the city, but also incorporate crucial information about urban functioning and management, from traffic flow to energy and water systems. In practice, CIM materialises through software e. City CAD and platforms that allow city managers, engineers and policy-makers to visualise, analyse and optimise the operation of the city in real time.
