To be smart, cities must be safe first

A total of Rs 98,000 crore has been approved by the Cabinet for development of 100 smart cities and rejuvenation of 500 others. In the approach document of the Smart Cities Mission by the Government of India, it is clearly laid down that one of the key objectives is to promote cities that provide 'smart' solutions for safety and security of citizens, particularly women, children and the elderly.

In the recent past, India has faced and continues to face safety and security threats. India currently stands at rank 54 with a crime index of 46.82. Statistics from National Crime Records Bureau has pegged India with a crime rate of 58.11 per 1,00,000 of the population. Given the constant threats to safety and security that citizens face today, a city can be smart only if it is made safe first.

Application of smart solutions will enable cities to use technology, information and data to improve infrastructure and services. Safe cities are those which use multiple intelligence systems to gather public safety information effectively and respond to events efficiently, along with predicting and preventing suspicious activities.

In the safe city concept, it's all about what information we need to collect, when and where we need that information, who needs access to it, how does it get processed and what do we do with it and what decisions does it prompt.

This mainly consists of a centralised video surveillance and management system for monitoring and controlling the security and traffic situation along with protecting population, assets and reputation (reduce urban crime and improve citizen safety). Additionally, gathering information from other sensors such as LPR, gunshot detection, social media intelligence and more, all displayed on a GIS map creates better intelligence and situational awareness.

One city in India that has implemented these solutions well is Surat. Post implementation of the Safe City project,  the crime rate in Surat dipped by as much as 27 per cent.

Traditionally, the technology didn't exist to achieve a single command-and-control platform that gathered all relevant information. However, multiple systems generate significant amounts of data from upwards of tens of thousands of devices, systems and sub-systems-all of which can quickly overwhelm operators.

Therefore, a unified and correlated security structure is necessary to detect, evaluate and respond to incidents effectively. This created the necessity of a centralised command and control center which helps ensure the centralisation of data and records thus enabling a quicker response time to a crisis situation. Today's command-and-control technology eliminates this time-consuming process by enabling operators to centrally manage multiple data sources with a single command-and-control platform. Now when they receive an alert, operators can immediately start monitoring the area and instantly dispatch forces in the region, helping to enable faster and more accurate response action, better visibility and better decision making with actionable intelligence.

On any given day, administrators in a city of any size are tasked with some grouping of the following:

• Crime and defacement prevention
• Active shooter response
• Riot and mob control
• Fire and natural disaster qualification
• Terrorism recognition and prevention
• Public facility safety at schools and government organizations and buildings, on public transportation etc
• Provisional and event security

Implementing complete command-and-control solutions to progress towards comprehensive situational awareness, gathering actionable intelligence and effectively responding to events have become crucial in protecting rising urban populations in cities such as Surat and Pune.

 

Safety is a part of what makes a city smart and hence it can be said without a doubt that safe cities are the stepping stones to smart cities in India. Through Safe Cities, the city authority has taken steps to unify the monitoring, response and reaction to activities deemed to pose a threat to citizens by organizing resources and appropriate responses on a real time basis. Given the focus and impetus on

Smart Cities by the Government of India at present, it becomes even more relevant for them to focus on the aspect of safety since only a secured city will bring in investment and lead to job opportunities and related economic growth.  The state authorities along with the support of the Central Government should push to implement the required infrastructure, tools and solutions to make a city safe which is undoubtedly essential for making the city smart.

The author is Country Manager at Verint Video Systems