Every Smart City will have a Smart City Centre (SCC) (i.e. Integrated Command and Control Centre). The SCC functions as a city’s nervous system where digital technologies are integrated with social, physical, and environmental aspects of the city, to enable centralised monitoring and decision making. In the SCC architecture, Internet of Things (IoT) devices such as sensors, GPS equipments and cameras located at the front-end (trash bins, vehicles, streets, poles etc.) collect and transmit data through a communication network to a central facility. Applications then convert the data and information received into insights, which further facilitates a decision support system. The SCC thus enables real time monitoring and expeditious incident response management in city operations. 

SCCs have already been set up in 10 cities with an approximate investment of Rs 1200 crore. These cities are Naya Raipur, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat, Pune, Nagpur, Rajkot, Visakhapatnam, Kakinada, and Bhopal. Thirteen other cities have started work on setting up such centres; and another 32 are at an advanced stage of pre-work preparation. 

The five areas in which the impact of SCCs is already being felt are enhanced quality of services, safety and resilience, inclusiveness in city operations, faster emergency response management, and environmental sustainability. These results are predicated on the use of IoT and Artificial Intelligence (AI) by the SCCs.

The results speak for themselves. In Rajkot, the crime rate has reduced by 18% over the past two quarters as on April 2018. There is also an improvement in traffic challans issuance, indicating behavioural change. Monitoring of cleaning work through CCTV camera has led to reduction in instances of littering, urination in public, and nighttime burning of garbage. In Kakinada, environment sensors have been deployed for automatic weather monitoring, air quality monitoring, and lightning detection.

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