The Municipality of Burgas took up the gauntlet from former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and has joined the competition entitled “The Challenge of Mayors” organized by his foundation “Bloomberg Philanthropies”. The competition is organized in the U.S. since 2012 but this year for the first time it is aimed at European cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants. The coastal city of Burgas will compete with another 182 cities on the Old Continent, including the Bulgarian capital for the grand prize of 5 million euro. It will be awarded for the most innovative, bold and creative proposal for solving some of the pressing problems of modern European cities. Four incentive awards to the tune 1 million will be handed out. "A platform to safely navigate the urban area” is the idea with which Burgas will join the contest. The project envisages the creation of an audio navigation system for children and people with disabilities and light-signaling devices on walkways through new technological methods.

“Special speaking devices with an attractive design for the children will be prepared”, explains Ms. Ivelina Strateva, head of Economics and Business Activities Department at Burgas Municipality. These devices will resemble a clock and will be distributed to the children. Through them they will alert special sensors mounted near the crosswalk that they intend to cross, and it will be lit. Furthermore, these devices will be able to communicate also with special sensors placed in cars, timely warning motorists that a pedestrian is in the street. At first we plan to equip all vehicles of public transport and to encourage taxi drivers to place such sensors. Besides providing very safe driving in the streets, the device will have an educational function for children who are learning to cross the street. It will also have a panic button, so that the parent will receive real-time information about the route and the location of the child.”

A poll among Burgas children shows that 75% of them would like to walk alone to school, but this is not happening because parents are worried about their safety. The new device will be able to guide kids in the safest route to school. It will be distributed to students from first to fourth grade. The project envisages the creation of a mobile navigation application that can be used by all owners of smart phones. The whole city will be filmed in order to develop a map with the safest routes. The idea of the municipality is to develop this map at a later stage so as to be useful for tourists. "

“This project provides audible navigation for people with disabilities”, adds Mrs. Strateva. “For example, people with visual impairment will be guided to the bus stops and traffic lights with audible alarm. At a later stage, when introducing the overall system of integrated urban transport, these devices will communicate with the station itself and will be able to tell visually impaired people which bus arrives at the bus stop and when.”

According to preliminary calculations, the project would cost about 3 million euro and will take approximately two years to introduce the system to safely navigate the city. Burgas citizens are now keeping their fingers crossed so that their idea could win the race, because they are convinced that it will help solve the serious problem not only for their city but also for any modern urban environment. According to the Police, about 38% of serious road accidents in Burgas are precisely with pedestrians. The municipal project met the support of many civil society organizations as well as other cities in the country and abroad, such as Ghent, Malmö and Zurich. In April the 20 finalists will become clear and then the first five will be selected. Let's hope that Burgas will be one of them.

English version: Rossitsa Petcova