Students of Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University won the All-Russian competition for GIS project presentations “My Smart City.” Dozens of teams from universities across Russia, representing the fields of geology, ecology, mining, construction, transport process technology, cadastral registration, and land management, presented their geoinformation solutions designed to make cities more comfortable, safer, and more efficient.
Among the ideas presented were a network of smart urban sensors monitoring a wide range of parameters, from weather conditions to heavy-metal contamination of soils; a forest fire forecasting map; environmental monitoring of mining areas; and a multilingual GIS navigator with an AI guide for any city in Russia.
Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University was represented by fourth-year students from the Department of Land Management and Cadastres of the Faculty of Geospatial Technologies. The “4D Brigade” team developed a project entitled “Identifying Optimal Pedestrian Routes Based on Least-Cost Path Analysis: Eliminating ‘Desire Paths’.
According to team captain Daniil Zhiltsov, the idea had emerged some time ago and was simply waiting for the right opportunity:
«Many of us live in newly developed areas where entire residential neighbourhoods are designed based not on residents’ actual needs, but on design solutions that are far removed from logic. For example, there may be patches of lawn near a public transport stop that pedestrians have to step over, inadvertently trampling the vegetation. When we assessed the problem as a whole, we found that the design of pedestrian paths in cities often does not take actual movement patterns into account, resulting in the emergence of ‘desire paths’. They are particularly common in residential areas and have become a significant problem».
The “4D Brigade” proposed a human-centred approach to pedestrian path design, implemented as a geoinformation project using QGIS. With the help of the Lintera GIS plugin, which was originally developed for archaeological purposes, the students constructed optimal pedestrian routes and analysed them, confirming that informal paths have already emerged along these same routes.
In the future, the students plan to continue their research and develop their own software plugin that could be used by developers and designers to increase the automation of design and calculation procedures.
The expert panel highly evaluated the practical significance of the project and highlighted its potential to improve the quality of the urban environment through better planning of new residential neighbourhoods.
The “My Smart City” competition is aimed at stimulating students’ research activities in geoinformation modelling and spatial analysis. It focuses on addressing applied challenges related to the sustainable development of urban and mining areas, rational use of natural resources, and the digital transformation of relevant industries.
«Competitions like this bring together young researchers who look at cities and see not simply completed streets and buildings, road networks, and green spaces. They see spaces that can be developed and optimized using innovative technologies and methods: geoinformation technologies, digital twins, the Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence. For students of Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University, participation in such events is an opportunity to develop their research competencies and public speaking skills and receive feedback from professional experts», - said Olga Lepikhina, Associate Professor of the Department of Land Management and Cadastres and the project’s academic supervisor.
All members of the winning team are active members of the “Land Management” Student Scientific Society.
«Our Society is still very young, but in the year since its establishment, we have already held the International Conference ‘Management of Real Estate and Integrated Territorial Development’, regularly organize meetings with specialists in our field, and hold student discussions on current professional issues. Alongside theoretical education and the acquisition of practical skills, participation in the work of the Student Scientific Society contributes to the full realization of each young person’s intellectual potential and lays the foundation for future discoveries», - said team captain Daniil Zhiltsov.
