ewz.LoRaWAN — Zurich's Municipal IoT Network
Zurich's city-owned utility ewz and the municipal IT department OIZ have run a citywide LoRaWAN since pilots in spring 2018, routing sensor data into the city's own data centre and offering it to every department. Applications stay small: a 185-space parking pilot at the Hallenstadion, and 16 chair sensors that measured how two public squares are used.
Live
📅 since 2018
✔ Editor-reviewed
Evidence• No measured figure
Scale🏙️ City-wide
📖 Terms in this entry: LoRaWAN · Urban sensor network · Adaptive traffic signals
Sources
↗ Stadt Zürich — Internet der Dinge: OIZ und ewz bieten Service anCity authority: ewz and OIZ built the LoRaWAN; ewz moves data from the gateways into the OIZ data centre; pilot projects began in spring 2018.
↗ ewz — LoRaWAN, IoT-Netz für ZürichOperator: dates regular operation of ewz.LoRaWAN to 2020 and describes citywide gateway coverage.
↗ Stadt Zürich — Sensoren-Tests auf zwei Zürcher Plätzen (8 Aug 2022)Tiefbauamt and ETH Zurich fitted chairs on Münsterhof and Vulkanplatz with sensors for occupancy, temperature, humidity and noise, transmitted over ewz's LoRaWAN.
↗ inside-it.ch — Smarte Stühle in Zürich haben sich bewährt (5 Apr 2023)Swiss IT trade press: 16 sensors, eight per square, reliable transmission.
↗ powernewz (ewz) — «Zürich soll die smarteste City der Welt werden»ewz's own magazine: 185 sensor-equipped parking spaces at the Hallenstadion fed into the city parking guidance system, as a pilot.
↗ akenza — ewz opens ewz.LoRaWAN as Connectivity as a Service (15 Jun 2022)Partner announcement: third parties in Zurich can attach their own sensors to the municipal network.
Continue exploring
Compare this project
🇦🇹 Wiener Netze / Wien Energie LoRaWAN Sensor Network · Vienna
Same architecture: a municipal utility (ewz, Wiener Netze) builds a citywide LoRaWAN and opens it to city departments and third parties.
🇨🇭 ewz Smart Meter Rollout on the City Fibre Network · Zürich
Both ride ewz's own network infrastructure: LoRaWAN sensors and smart-meter telemetry share the utility's city-owned fibre backbone.
🇨🇭 Zurich Transit Signal Priority (ÖV-Beschleunigung) · Zürich
Another verified project from Zürich.
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📎 Cite this project
1001 Smart Cities (2026). “ewz.LoRaWAN — Zurich's Municipal IoT Network” — Zürich, Switzerland. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/zurich-iot-sensor-network/ (last verified 2026-07-29). Data: CC BY 4.0.
The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.