Smart digital infrastructure encompasses all those elements which make a city intelligent and more digitally savvy. Since technology forms the building block of any smart city, various initiatives centred around new-age technologies have been undertaken by smart cities in India. The goal behind launching various innovative technologies is to develop a robust communications infrastructure for greater efficiency. As part of their digital initiative, smart cities are developing online portals for civic services, deploying automation and instrumentation tools for asset monitoring and maintenance, and enabling centrally managed smart traffic systems. Besides, various technological solutions such as integrated command and control centres (ICCCs), mobile apps and online grievance redressal systems are being introduced under the Smart Cities Mission.
A look at some of the elements of smart digital infrastructure deployed across smart cities…
Smart poles and towers
Smart infrastructure, in the form of smart poles and smart towers, is a rapidly emerging trend in smart cities across the world. Smart poles, in particular, serve as core components of the infrastructure of a smart city. Their capacity to contain software controls, electronics and sensors that can assist in receiving and transmitting from a pole’s position to the operator’s location has been key in driving the demand for smart poles globally. Meanwhile, increasing levels of digitalisation have propelled the telecom tower industry to work on developments in terms of structure, design, operations and management of towers. Towercos have started transforming traditional towers into smart towers, which offer real-time monitoring of sites, digitalisation of field operations, predictive analytics for operations and real-time GPS-based mapping for disaster management. In addition, smart towers help in optimising the cost of buildout. Together, smart poles and smart towers give towercos the opportunity to monetise various adjacencies. In fact, smart poles are rapidly emerging as the preferred medium of tower deployment among industry players.
Integrated command and control centres
Smart cities have an ICCC depending on the city’s capacity and resources. An ICCC serves as the nervous system of the municipal ecosystem and helps in monitoring city operations, assets and resources. It can also identify incidents, coordinate responses, and predict future trends and events for long-term planning.
In fact, ICCCs played a key role in collaborating with concerned government departments while dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic. They helped manage the crisis and offered services including dedicated lines for handling hospital bed requests and monitoring Covid-19 hotspots, oxygen capacity, availability of hospital beds, number of patients in ICUs, and ambulance services. For instance, over 45 smart cities converted their ICCCs into war rooms for real-time data monitoring. They used the government’s data dashboard to provide up-to-date information about the status of Covid cases in different administrative zones of cities.
As of February 11, 2022, 75 smart cities had set up ICCCs to monitor situations concerning traffic, water logging, law and order and the environment. This enabled decision-making and daily operations. According to the government, all 100 smart cities will have operational ICCCs by August 2022.
Cloud infrastructure
Smart cities generate enormous amounts of data from billions of connected devices. This requires a large computing capacity for storing and analysing the information. Further, the computing infrastructure should be scalable, cost-effective and agile enough to accommodate demand-side fluctuations. Cloud storage has emerged as the most viable option, meeting all of these criteria. Cloud provides a platform where data can be securely collected from various interconnected devices and sensors, and can be made readily available for use by both the government and private stakeholders.
Further, cloud computing offers the capability to assimilate huge volumes of data without adding additional hardware storage capacities, thereby bringing down the costs of data management. Storing data on the cloud also takes care of data security, privacy and reliability, while minimising the need for coding. In a smart city ecosystem, connected devices can easily interact with cloud applications, making it easy to access data on a real-time basis without a lengthy provisioning process. Further, provisioning and withdrawal of resources can be repeated indefinitely in cloud computing.
Going forward, cloud computing can be used to create a network of smart cities. By sharing certain data and data-driven insights from a cloud with cloud providers in other cities, it might be possible to create a management system template that could transform a “normal” city into a smart city relatively quickly, and with reduced need for human involvement.
Fibre infrastructure
All the components of smart cities and ICCCs require a critical element, that is, fibre-based backhaul. Fibre not only provides the necessary backhaul support for the efficient functioning of smart city networks, but also enables the effective handling and transmission of the large amounts of data generated from these networks and systems. Services such as Wi-Fi, video surveillance and security, smart urban infrastructure, smart mobility and management are enabled through fibre infrastructure. Further, OFC, with its virtually unlimited capacity, is the perfect backbone for the delivery of bandwidth-intensive applications in a smart city. It facilitates the installation of sensors, which are a critical component of intelligent solutions deployed in smart cities. In addition, OFC offers higher network reliability and security, supporting lower attenuation for transmission over long distances.
Recognising the fundamental role of OFC networks in the development of smart cities, several cities selected under the Smart Cities Mission have already started deploying citywide OFC networks while others have started working on ducting for OFC networks, OFC deployment for ICCCs and other OFC-related civil works.
AI-enabled smart infrastructure
AI is finding increased uptake among smart cities. The technology can enable waste management, mobility, traffic systems, policing and healthcare services using data sensors. AI can be used to read licence plates and recognise faces to track stolen cars, identify expired registrations and issue tickets in case of any driving-related offences. It can also be used to track the speed and movement of vehicles to establish patterns. Adaptive signal control technology allows traffic lights to change their timing based on real-time data. It can also be used to monitor and control street lighting, as well as in park maintenance, pavement maintenance, etc. to reduce operational costs.
Moreover, intelligent security solutions can be deployed to check the movement of suspects, identify potential crimes, detect cyberattacks and take the necessary steps to prevent unwanted activities. Further, social media intelligence platforms can aid public safety by gathering information from networking sites and predicting potential activities that may be a threat to the public. As per an industry report, the crime rate in Surat has dropped by 27 per cent after the implementation of AI-powered safety systems. AI-based surveillance systems can be deployed to keep a check on potential crime incidents and the general security of residents. In addition, AI-based solutions can be explored for effective crowd management during emergencies and disasters.
IoT-based smart systems
The applications of IoT in a smart city are manifold, including smart street lighting, smart waste management, smart parking, smart traffic management and smart environment monitoring. An IoT-based lighting system provides an energy efficient solution. Unlike a traditional lighting system, which has fixed and undifferentiated lighting levels, smart lighting adapts to the weather conditions and can automatically dim or brighten the lights depending on the time of day. It also uses the human presence detection technique. Further, in an IoT-based lighting system, lighting failures are automatically reported and fixed in real time, which is not possible in a traditional lighting system as failure inspection is a manual process. Moreover, the digital system smartly plans the maintenance work for the entire city and creates maintenance routes.
The way forward
Technology adoption across smart cities is expected to grow in the near future. The government has started adding more cities under the Smart Cities Mission. This will expand the opportunities for tech service providers. The effective capitalisation of these opportunities will require the government to take up a more active role in creating a favourable ecosystem for the deployment of these new-age technologies.
Diksha Sharma
