Smart City Experiences Challenges, Benefits and Future Settings

Mobility solutions in future shall be characterised by their environmental friendliness, citizen inclusiveness and data driven decision support systems.

Venkata Chunduru

IBI Group is involved in design and implementation of two such projects Bhubaneshwar smart City and Hyderabad Intelligent Traffic Management System (ITMS) as a Consultant in the former and as System Integrator in later. Mobility System for Bhubaneshwar which is also planned to be Child friendly city, was designed by IBI comprised of six modules i.e. Smart Traffic, Smart Transit, Smart Response, ICCC, Smart Payment and City Communication System. Bhubaneshwar Urban Knowledge Centre managed by IBI was aimed at strengthening the institutional capacity and capability of all the five organisations engaged in developing and managing the City’s municipal services. In Hyderabad ITMS project, the focus was on capturing the right data and sharing it with the right people at the right time to have right interventions for enhancing the road user experience in terms of safe, economical and comfortable journey across city roads. ITMS also involves integration of signalling system with real time traffic to reduce idling time at junctions and further reducing pollution. For authority,ITMS is designed to achieve cop-less junctions and performance management of system and staff through KPI driven dashboards and MIS.

Shah highlighted the high stress levels and decreased productivity caused by the daily commute and suggested that working from home whenever possible is an alternate solution to daily gridlocks. When he asked Krishna Prasad how a public transport network can be expanded and how more people can be persuaded to use it, the latter joked that it’s a chicken-and-egg situation. Krishna Prasad said, “As a nation, we have started thinking about Smart Cities at the right time, but the aspirations of a typical Indian middleclass family includes the acquisition of materialistic things, which cannot be avoided. From buying the latest model of mobile phone every year, the trend has shifted to buying the latest car, which is marketed in a way that is irresistible to the consumer.”

When asked how government bodies with differing mandates all work can together for a common transport solution, Dr Jagtap said that the Pune Smart City Board has representatives from various organisations such as the municipal corporation, public transport authority and the police, as well as elected representatives from both the ruling and opposition parties, citizen groups and academicians. These stakeholders, who once looked for solutions in isolation, now find them together in a citizen-centric manner.

Chunduru said that in the future of urban mobility, he sees a focus on green transport. People will also find ways to reduce travel by choosing alternatives such as telecommuting.