St. Catharines will soon have free Wi-Fi in Montebello Park, phone chargers outside the public library and touchscreen maps near Market Square.

The city is poised to become one of the first in Canada to install smart kiosks on its streets in a pilot partnership with Bell Canada.

The smart kiosks — just more three metres high, a metre wide and a half-metre thick — each have two 55-inch LED touch screens, USB charging ports and an emergency 911 call button.

"Connectivity is very important this day in age," said Karthik Venkataraman, St. Catharines senior manager of information technology.

"If we're able to now provide Wi-Fi and maybe some interactive services through those touchscreens, I believe residents will be able to connect to the city and have that two-way communication."

Three kiosks will be installed downtown for the pilot project. The first is expected to be up and running by the end of May near the St. Catharines library courtyard. The others will follow at Montebello Park by the rose garden and near Market Square on the King Street side.

The weatherproof kiosks will provide free Wi-Fi within a 70-metre range.

They'll all have interactive wayfinding signage, information about the city, the 911 call button, braille on buttons and USB ports for free charging of devices.

Details of the pilot project, including costs, were part of an in-camera discussion by city council, which authorized the agreement with Bell last week. But the city said the smart kiosks are intended to be self-sustaining and provide new advertising revenue.

St. Catharines council joins Kingston's as the first in the country to enter partnerships for the kiosks with Bell. None of the kiosks have been installed yet.

Bell senior vice-president Gary Semplonius said the kiosks are part of a larger Smart City initiative in which the company has been investing. Smart Cities use technology to connect citizens and city departments to make cities a better place to live.

That means connecting citizens with up-to-date information, such as having digital signs at a bus shelter letting people know where their bus is and when it's going to arrive or providing information through an application on their smartphones.

Semplonius said there's a place for every city department from culture to parks and recreation to traffic management to be impacted and optimized through Smart City applications and technologies.

"It's bringing them all together in a way that the city can operate and function more cost-effectively, have better citizen engagement and be a safer place to visit and live," he said. "That's where the big benefits are going to come from."

The kiosks are a niche component of a full Smart City rollout, but one Semplonius said is very visible and has obvious benefits to citizens so cities are choosing to move forward with it first.

Venkataraman of the city said St. Catharines' strategic plan talks about putting Wi-Fi in the downtown core and this pilot project lends itself very well to that goal, in addition to becoming a Smart City.

If the kiosk pilot is deemed successful and there's uptake from the community, Venkataraman said there may be more smart kiosks located throughout St. Catharines, not just downtown.

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"It's getting communications and information available real time through a device that's running 24-7."

Karena.Walter@niagaradailies.com

905-225-1628 | @karena_standard