Information and communication technology (ICT) forms the backbone of a smart city and plays an instrumental role in delivering smart solutions to citizens across segments such as governance, energy, transportation and waste management. With the internet of things (IoT) concept gaining wider acceptance, a robust ICT infrastructure is essential for seamless connectivity of various devices, as well as to enable city administrations to use and analyse the data generated from these end points to monitor and manage city operations. A round-up of the applications and connectivity solutions that some of the smart cities are deploying…
Surat
The smart city plan of Surat includes several pan-city solutions and area-based development initiatives, with a focus on both infrastructure and ICT advancements at strategic locations. The smart applications to be implemented include an intelligent transportation management system (ITMS), an integrated traffic control system, an automatic fare collection system, enterprise resource planning solutions, integrated command and control centres (CCCs), a citizen engagement portal and app, smart street lights, smart water meter systems, smart water management (SWM) systems and intelligent parking systems.
Further, as part of the smart city plan, the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) is working on the Connected Surat Project. Under this, it is planning to develop a robust network infrastructure that supports digital applications and ensures connectivity to the SMC offices, including the head office, zonal offices, ward offices, bus rapid transit system (BRTS) stops, bus depots, health centres, civic centres, community halls, amusement areas and emergency response units. The Connected Surat Project will be implemented in two phases. The first phase entails the creation of an optic fibre cable (OFC) network for the BRTS corridor and other important SMC locations. The OFC network will act as a backbone for other smart city initiatives. Under the second phase, leased lines, multiprotocol label switching and dark fibre connectivity will be obtained for locations that are not connected with the OFC network.
Chennai
Chennai Smart City Limited (CSCL), a special purpose vehicle incorporated to oversee smart city projects in Chennai, has set up a number of CCCs to help in coordinating and synergising key functions. Going forward, CSCL will set up a smart grid in T. Nagar to digitally integrate the power infrastructure in the area. In an effort to combine the benefits of LED lighting and mobile connectivity, CSCL will also install smart poles. Besides this, the company is working on an intelligent solid waste management system, which will have cameras with Edge analytics to monitor garbage bins at vulnerable locations. Also in the pipeline is a plan by the city administration to introduce smart cards to enable multimodal integration through linked payments across utilities. CSCL will also introduce GIS Lidar mapping, which will be used to map all the utilities. In January this year, the Greater Chennai Corporation launched Namma Chennai, a public grievance redressal app, which allows authorities to track civic grievances.
As part of the smart city initiative, the city administration will establish Wi-Fi hotspots and smart elements across various parks. Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags will also be deployed in over 100,000 autorickshaws and taxis to track vehicle movement and provide drivers’ background information to ensure passenger safety. In addition, 500 public buses will be fitted with emergency call boxes and GPS tracking devices for passenger safety.
Nagpur
As part of its smart city initiative, the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) will introduce various intelligent solutions. It will provide a 1,200 km fibre-based citywide connectivity network, which will include 650 km of ducting. Further, it will deploy 100 smart kiosk terminals across the city to provide round-the-clock services to citizens. Wi-Fi will also be deployed for the general public and businesses at 136 locations across the city, covering 1,360 access points. With the goal to make the city safer and more secure for citizens, NMC will provide CCTV-based city surveillance at 700 sites. The municipality will also establish CCCs and a city operation centre for better monitoring, regulation and enforcement of services.
Apart from these citywide projects, NMC will be working on the Smart Strip project. The smart strip encompasses a linear stretch of around 5.8 km including both residential and commercial establishments. Various smart applications are being deployed along this stretch, including environmental sensors to measure and display critical information along with mobile applications for citizens; smart sensors for tracking vehicles, and real-time management of garbage collection points as part of the ICT-based SWM, use of smart bins that will be provisioned with volume sensors and RFID tags, refuse collector vehicles provisioned with RFID readers and GPS devices, hand-held devices with GPS tracking for fieldworkers; wireless sensors for smart parking systems; controller- and sensor-based smart LED lighting to support automated lighting; adaptive traffic control systems at 10 traffic junctions along with a voice-and text-enabled public communications system; and a system to monitor buses and obtain real-time information from inside buses as well as bus stops.
Bhopal
Bhopal Smart City Development Corporation Limited (BSCDCL) has launched a number of projects and smart applications. These include integrated CCC that is live and operational with eight city-level and three state-level services integrated into a single unit. BSCDCL has also introduced an ITMS dashboard, which has an RLVD system that tracks traffic light violations; a system for overspeeding and no-helmet detection; and a system for generating e-challans. In addition, BSCDCL has launched Bhopal Plus, a smart city app that has over 20 citizen-centric services. By using the Bhopal smart city map, which is a 98-layer GIS platform cutting across departments, it would be possible to search and locate facilities, track property details and give location-based feedback.
The city administration has also deployed smart poles and LED street lighting in different areas. Apart from this, there is a Bhopal water utility management system. This is a SCADA-based system with GIS-integrated supervisory control, a real-time water loss detection system and a data acquisition system along with a centralised CCC. The system enables real-time remote monitoring and control of 12 water treatment plants and around 175 elevated storage reservoirs in Bhopal on the parameters of flow, pressure, energy consumption and water quality.
Gwalior
As part of its smart city initiative, Gwalior has launched various projects, including a public bicycle-sharing system, smart classrooms, an integrated CCC, the one city one app, smart parking management, smart roads development, a smart healthcare facility, skill development and incubation centres, street sweeping machines, ITMS, smart pole development, smart signage development, and solar rooftop panels.
Under the smart parking project, 24 locations will be identified. Of these, 12 will be off-street, 10 will be on-street and 2 will be multilevel parking. While 10 locations will fall under the area-based development project, 14 will span the city. In total, a parking space for 1,600 two-wheelers and 550 cars will be created. As far as the smart healthcare project is concerned, smart cards will be issued by banks to citizens for making payments and authentication purposes, health kiosks where citizens can register for testing and consultation purposes will be established, and 24×7 medicine ATMs will be set up.
Ahmedabad
The Ahmedabad smart city plan includes various pan-city and area-based development projects. It is implementing ITMS, which would upgrade 230 BRTS buses, 158 BRT stations, 850 Ahmedabad Municipal Transport Service buses and 2,900 bus stations. The city administration is also undertaking the Safe and Secure Ahmedabad (SASA) project, which is aimed at deploying cutting-edge technologies such as IoT sensors (25 environment and 20 parking sensors), installing 126 smart LED display boards and over 6,500 surveillance cameras with state-of-the-art CCCs, and providing 45 free Wi-Fi spots. Under the SASA project, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited will provide network connectivity to 1,576 locations across the city, and to data centres and control rooms.
Network for the BRTS is another project under which OFC will be used to connect BRTS bus stations and the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s zonal offices to data centres and disaster recovery sites. It is a first-of-its-kind digital transformation initiative for the transport sector.
Conclusion
Smart cities present numerous opportunities for players in the ICT and telecom domain. They are uniquely positioned to tap this opportunity, as they understand the local city dynamics as well as domestic and international best practices to provide connectivity highways for devices and user interfaces.
Based on presentations and inputs by C. Chockalingam, VP and Head, Construction Services (India), Larsen & Toubro; M.Tejasvi, CEO, Gwalior Smart City; R.S. Rathore, Engineer-IT, Bhopal Smart City; C.Y. Bhatt, Deputy Municipal Commissioner, SMC; R. Shankar, CEO, Ahmedabad Smart Cities Limited; and R. Cherubal, CEO, CSCL
