Ten Years After the SZ Article: Has Yverdon-les-Bains Delivered on Its Smart Lighting Promises?
Exactly ten years ago, the Süddeutsche Zeitung described Yverdon-les-Bains as a small city with big ambitions: intelligent street lights that brighten when detecting movement, consume less energy, and were supposed to cover the entire city in the medium term. Back then, this sounded like a Smart City in miniature format – with a clear commitment: By 2025, lighting costs (or more precisely in the official documents: energy consumption) were supposed to drop massively.
Today, the more compelling question is no longer whether the idea sounded good. But rather: What became of the promises – and how can this be verified?
What was promised back then
The SZ report presented Yverdon as a pioneer: sensors, demand-responsive lighting, less light pollution, more efficiency. Particularly striking was the target figure for 2025: Public lighting was supposed to consume only a fraction of its previous usage.
Important here is a clear classification: In the official documents of the city and Yverdon Énergies, arguments are made primarily with energy consumption (kWh) – not exclusively with total lighting costs over the lifecycle.
What the city has documented in the meantime
The city and Yverdon Énergies have published several documents in recent years that make progress tangible:
- In the Plan directeur de l'éclairage public 2020–2025 (2019), it is recorded as an interim status that a large portion of the lights had already been converted to dynamic LED technology.
- In Préavis PR24.05PR (2024), the city names concrete target values for project completion (planned until end of April 2025):
- approximately 450,000 kWh/year electricity consumption for public lighting,
- compared to 1,900,000 kWh/year in 2010,
- as well as an investment credit of CHF 1.7 million to finalize LED conversion and control systems.
- At the same time, it becomes clear there: The project is not just lamp replacement, but also control per light point (telemanagement) – meaning more flexibility for safety, comfort, and targeted switching off/reduction.
This is important because it also allows measuring the criticism from back then: not just "smart" technology as a buzzword, but a real transformation with an operational concept.
The critical questions that must be asked today
The interesting point ten years later is not the technology, but the verifiability. Anyone wanting to assess whether Yverdon really delivered on the SZ narrative should ask these questions:
1) Was the 2025 target actually achieved – or just planned?
The official documents name the target 450,000 kWh/year and project completion by April 2025. But: A target value in a resolution is not yet an actual value.
Verification question:
- Is there a published annual value for 2025 (or 2024/2025) for actual electricity consumption of street lighting?
- Is a target-actual comparison published?
2) Did all lights really become "intelligent" – or only where it makes technical sense?
Already in the official texts, there are limitations: Dynamic lighting should come everywhere where possible. For main roads and complex traffic axes, different requirements sometimes apply than in residential areas.
Verification question:
- What is the percentage of lights with real individual control, sensors, or dynamic profiles?
- Which areas continue to operate conventionally (e.g., continuously or without motion detection)?
3) How do safety and acceptance stand?
The 2016 debate revolved heavily around sense of security, brightness, and light pollution. The city now argues with flexible control and targeted lighting of sensitive points (e.g., crosswalks).
Verification question:
- Are there data or reports on complaints, accidents, subjective sense of security, or acceptance after the conversion?
- Were lighting profiles subsequently adjusted?
4) Was interoperability really solved?
A central point in the SZ context was concern about "buzzwords" and isolated solutions. In Préavis 2024, the city explicitly writes that an extended system was deliberately not introduced for a long time to avoid being tied to a single supplier.
Verification question:
- Which platform was ultimately chosen?
- Does Yverdon today use open standards or interoperable components – or still a de facto vendor lock-in?
5) Were Smart City additional functions (noise, traffic, parking, environment) actually implemented?
In 2016, there was much talk of multifunctional lamps (WLAN, environmental measurement, charging points). In Yverdon, such functions appear in newer documents more as a possibility – not automatically as already comprehensively realized practice.
Verification question:
- Which additional sensors are actually in use today?
- Are there publicly accessible data (e.g., noise, traffic counting, parking space utilization)?
- Was WLAN via street lights actually implemented – or did that remain an industry promise?
Where the promises can be verified
Anyone wanting to seriously track the development should not only read media reports, but especially compare these sources:
1) Official project and council documents of the city
Here are goals, budgets, schedules, and technical assumptions.
What to watch for?
- Target values in kWh
- Investment amounts
- Timeline (e.g., end of April 2025)
- Assumptions for amortization (with/without night shutdown)
2) Yverdon Énergies
There you find operational communication about public lighting (rollout, technology, project progress, sub-projects like old town/historic center).
What to watch for?
- Statements on conversion status
- References to dynamic lighting by zone type
- Published consumption values or project updates
3) Geoportal / Map status of municipal utilities
In the Plan directeur, it is explicitly mentioned that the progress of LED renewal is publicly visible.
What to watch for?
- Mapped expansion degree
- Which neighborhoods are already modernized
- Whether the map is currently maintained
4) Political follow-up proposals and municipal council reports (2025/2026)
Especially there it becomes apparent whether a project was completed as planned or had to be refinanced/extended.
What to watch for?
- Final reports
- Additional credits
- Evaluations
- New target corrections
Why the Yverdon case remains interesting
Yverdon-les-Bains is particularly compelling because the city is not a marketing showcase of a tech metropolis. The case rather shows municipal everyday life: technical limitations, political decisions, budget issues, safety debates, and gradual implementation.
Precisely for this reason, Yverdon is also well-suited for a sober assessment ten years after the SZ article:
- Yes, much suggests that the city has seriously and systematically advanced the transformation.
- But whether the publicly perceived promise ("smart," cheaper, better, darker where possible) was fully delivered depends on published actual data – not on project goals.
Conclusion
The 2016 SZ text seemed like a glimpse into the future. Ten years later, Yverdon-les-Bains is a good test case for how reliable Smart City promises really are.
The crucial question today is no longer whether intelligent street lamps work technically. But rather: Where are the numbers that show the promised effects actually occurred?
Anyone wanting to verify this should compare energy consumption, investments, control degree, and public evaluations side by side – and that's exactly where the real Smart City debate begins.