The concept of a smart and safe city is gaining ground in India. Cities such as Surat, Mysore and Pune are using advanced technology for smarter healthcare and transportation. Monitoring devices are also being deployed to make our citizens safe and secure
Most developments across cities in our country are haphazard and lack proper planning. On paper, while these cities and towns may have master plans, in reality they are an urban mess with endemic traffic jams, innumerable power cuts and erratic water supply. To add to the woes is the increase in crime in cities we live in.
Is there are way out to get rid of this chaos? Definitely yes, reckon some technology players that are engaged in giving our cities a ?smart? makeover by modernising infrastructures, specifically with a view to ease traffic woes, streamline water supply and make our citizens safe and secure. Their initiatives might be isolated, but hold the promise to make our infrastructure network and delivery of services efficient?across telecommunication, logistics, water and gas supply.
The city of Surat in Gujarat has been heralded as the first city in India to implement the concept of safe city, equipped with a command control centre. Closed-circuit television or CCTV, as known in common parlance, is a system which we all know of or have been introduced to at certain stages of our existence in this technology-driven world. Within closed walls, technology has enabled us to have a bird?s eye view of a whole city.
The technology centre in Surat not only captures day-to-day activities across important points in the city but also alerts the system in case of possible suspicious activities. This command control centre is key to the Safe City Project, which is a community-based initiative that leverages partnerships and technology to help communities and businesses reduce crime.
The ownership and leadership of local law enforcement is the critical foundation and key to success for the Safe City Project. Aided by technical solutions and technology, local
administrative bodies and state governments work to increase awareness and security amongst the people and help ensure round-the-clock surveillance. The Surat City Police Department and Surat Traffic Education Trust in collaboration with Verint Systems are implementing this project.
?Surat is one of the first cities in India to deploy a command and control centre architecture that encompass high quality megapixel cameras with a centralised physical security information management system (PSIM), and have a modern data centre to host high-resolution video images,? says Manish Shah, Asia Pacific head, Verint Systems. He adds that these systems are typically deployed with two goals, one of deterrence, with a round-the-clock monitoring to prevent crime, and the other to assist security personnel in identifying and responding to security incidents quickly.
For the uninitiated, the concept of a smart city was brought into limelight in India by IBM. The tech major brought its smarter planet concept to India in 2010 and today, it has over 20 projects under IBM smarter cities initiatives. To name a few cities among them are Delhi, Pune and Bangalore. Techies are deploying various technologies to address numerous issues. These include traffic control, using sensors to monitor water leaks, tracking garbage trucks through global positioning systems to ensure they dump their waste at designated landfills, energy management in smart buildings and complexes.
In recent months, Pune has demonstrated a strong passion to re-energise its existing infrastructure towards building a smarter city. Recently, an IBM team presented its plan to the Pune Municipal Corporation for providing its citizens with improved health and transportation services. Many of the recommendations involve the use of mobile technology and the analysis of large and complex quantities of electronic information, often referred to as big data.
For Pune?s healthcare, IBM feels that the use of low-cost mobile phones to gather and report information could help officials more quickly identify and resolve both short-term events, such as disease outbreaks, and chronic public health issues, such as infant mortality. For example, with the proper consents, citizens could use their mobile phones as a way to automatically update physicians about their health status. Their phones might also receive SMS alerts when a child is due to receive immunisation or when precautions need to be taken during public health emergencies. A single, region-wide telephone number to summon emergency responders would make it easier for citizens to receive assistance for health and safety issues, such as for severe illness, accidents and assaults.
Data from mobile devices was also at the heart of IBM?s recommendations to improve public and private transportation. IBM officials feel that analysing anonymous cellphone signals and video camera feeds could help transportation and law enforcement officials better pinpoint and address roadways prone to congestion or accidents. More accurate information about travel patterns would allow planners to model and design more convenient, safer, reliable and faster public transportation routes and modes of travel, such as a metro, auto-rickshaws and buses. The availability of detailed data would also enable apps to help travelers plan their trips door to door, and receive timely updates about traffic disruptions.
Cut to present. The Surat project is a step in the right direction. However, round-the-clock surveillance through video cameras does raise questions about the citizens? right to privacy. But those dealing in these systems assure that such reservations will subside once there is enough awareness about the benefits of such systems. ?In India, there is a need for educating the citizens on the positive benefits of security surveillance, as it can often be inaccurately perceived as the ?Big Brother? government monitoring of the people rather than a deterrent against crime and other threats,? says Shah.
One key challenge, apart from raising awareness for the need of these systems, is the absence of requisite infrastructure to support these systems. ?There is a lot awareness for a need of intelligent infrastructure and different states are at different levels of evolution with regard to making cities smart. In every state, there are initiatives to make systems more efficient. But there is an inherent disadvantage?the infrastructure which doesn?t support the latest technology in this segment. India is one big country where mobile technology has really caught on and this can be employed in the evolution of smart city. So we have to find means to leverage mobile technology,? says R Ramanan, CEO & MD, CMC.
According to industry estimates, by 2030, there will be close to 600 million people living in cities in India, and while 42 cities today have a population of more than one million, this number will go up by at least 50%. The pressure of population and development dictates that intelligent management systems will, in the time to come, become more central to the idea of administration and monitoring for government and other institutions.
For instance, CMC telematics-based intelligent transport solution (ITS) for public transit in Mysore allows smart scheduling, rostering, location sensing and predictions of public transit arrivals with a high degree of accuracy within cities and long distance travel. This is now integrated with revenue management, electronic ticketing machines and also uses heuristics and real time traffic information. First started in Karnataka, the system has been installed in more than 5,000 buses till now. The smart systems technology is increasingly attracting the private sector as well. ?The concept of digital township is fast gaining popularity among developers as well as consumers. Applications like digital water control systems, and metering systems, and facilities like shopping complexes within the township can be accessed from specially designed portals from the comfort of their couches,? says Ramanan.
And what about the investment required to install and run these systems? ?The investment for a physical security information management system depends on the scale of the surveillance coverage and the sophistication of the monitoring devices, such as high resolution cameras, sensors, biometrics etc. There are also intangible benefits to a secured safe city environment, in the confidence and assurance of the citizens, in the lower crime incidents (and positive impact to local enforcement agencies) and how much is the worth of preventing a single serious incident, or to paraphrase, ?how much is one life worth??? summarises Shah.
