The Future of CITIES

Acquiring Processing Power

Smart city concepts are alive in India as well. A growing band of developers, IT companies and city authorities are embracing smart technologies in Indian cities, reports Hari Pulakkat with Shelley Singh

Ashwin Mahesh, now CEO of the Bangalore start-up Mapunity, had studied physics, management, astronomy and atmospheric sciences before landing a job at NASA. During his five-year stint there, he researched polar clouds using remote sensing, a job that required the use of mathematics to analyse data. On returning to India, he worked on an e-governance programme started by Nandan Nilekani, incubated the social technology firm Mapunity at the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, and then started teaching there as visiting faculty. All through his life in different technical domains, he had never considered himself a traffic expert. But now, in many Indian city administrations, he is known as one. Maheshs moment of reckoning came when he realised that mobile phone data can be used to analyse traffic patterns. Almost everyone has a mobile phone these days, says Mahesh, and so the variation of phone density is a good indicator of traffic density and speed. Mahesh had read about the use of the technique in highways in developed countries, but no one had done it in an urban setting. Airtel offered to help Mahesh with data inputs as it did not involve privacy issues. In 2007, he struck up a relationship with the Bangalore police, and they jointly developed a traffic control centre in the city. The centre suggests interventions using three kinds of inputs: mobile phone density, GPS data from taxis and videos from 180 powerful cameras. So, for example, if the police finds above-average phone density on a street, it can look for reasons for congestion. The Bangalore police gave its cops BlackBerry handsets linked to the control centre, which enabled them to report traffic violations -- vehicle number and nature of offence -- in real-time. Mahesh also had the transport department change bus routes, from randomly picked points to radial and circular routes. Maheshs initiatives eased traffic congestion, increased revenue for the police and reduced accidents in the city. City administration officials elsewhere heard about it. Now, Chennai, Pune, Indore and several others are setting up similar centres. City administrators from around the country who came and saw the Bangalore traffic centre have gone back converted, says V Ravichandar, chairman of Feedback Consulting, who is actively involved in urban governance. Mapunity is giving other cities the technology platform of the centre free through the India@75 programme of the CII (Confederation of Indian Industry). Indian cities may seem chaotic on the surface, but they are beginning to use advanced technology within departments to solve problems. These include traffic control like in Bangalore, using sensors to monitor water leaks, tracking garbage trucks through GPS to ensure they dump their waste at designated landfills, energy management in smart buildings and complexes, and so on. Also under development are smart townships that are controlled centrally, and entire cities along the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor. As these projects expand and mature individually, Indian cities will be ready for technology integration. In India, smart cities are seen as technology projects, says Nilaya Varma, partner at Accenture. In developed

countries, they are seen as management projects. The concept of a smart city is a relatively new one anywhere in the world. Cities in the developed world are working on the idea systematically, primarily driven by visionary mayors and administrators. They ask large IT companies like IBM, Accenture and Cisco to formulate IT master plans for the city, and then use these plans to develop a citywide command and control network that monitors and optimises the delivery of services like power, water, traffic and healthcare. In India, smart city ideas are beginning from the bottom in small pockets, mostly through the efforts of eager private companies or enlightened individuals, but they could spread quickly once critical mass is achieved over the years. In the long run, both approaches have their respective advantages, says Steve Hodgkinson, research director of public sector technology at Ovum, a market research company. SMART DEVELOPMENT Smart city ideas can begin from anywhere. Wave Incorporated, a Delhibased conglomerate with interests in real estate and other businesses, is as good a place as any. The company recently bagged a project to develop and maintain a 4,500-acre plot near Ghaziabad, adjoining Delhi. It was a good opportunity for innovation as the licence also gave Wave the authority to maintain the township, now called Wave City. We found that its management was going to be complicated, says Manpreet Singh Chadha, joint managing director of Wave Inc. So we commissioned a study on how to do it. The study, done by IBM, suggested the use of smart technologies. Wave City is now investing 200 crore in hardware and software for the township. Wave City could be among the first smart townships in India if one does not count the controversy-ridden Lavasa, near Pune. The first phase of Wave City will be ready in a few years, and will consist of 1,700 acres filled with residential complexes, a mall, hospital, and some private companies. Sensors will provide real-time inputs to a control centre on clean water, energy, public transport, public safety, education, and healthcare. Intelligent communication tools will let administrators manage Wave City and respond to emergencies quickly (See main visual), as well as provide residents with constant real-time inputs. Says Shankar Kalyana, distinguished engineer and chief technology officer of IBM: People in India are now beginning to look at smart cities not as a fad, but as the way to build cities in the future. He says IBM is working with four Indian builders to formulate plans for similar cities. Seven new cities coming up along the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor will also use smart technologies. The Delhi-Mumbai railway link is now a common track for both passengers and cargo traffic, but the government is building a dedicated cargo corridor and, along the way, seven cities with a total investment of about $90 billion in a decade. Gas and water were cheap when cities in the west came up, says Amitabh Kant, managing director of the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corporation (DMICDC), which was why they spread out. Now gas and water are not cheap and we are looking at mass systems and digital technology that cuts across power, water, safety and transport needs. Master plans for six cities have been completed, and DMICDC has shortlisted Cisco, IBM and Accenture to prepare a digital master plan for the cities over the next few months. Says Kant: They will come up with customised models to adapt to Indian realities. DMICDC expects the first three smart cities to be ready by 2018-19. A city typically breaks even in the 17th or 18th year, and thereafter the funds generated by these cities could go into developing other smart cities in the country. THE NEED TO UPGRADE There is huge pressure on the Indian government to build new and smart cities. Every minute, 20 Indians move into cities. A recent analysis by Booz and Company says that Indias urban population will increase by 140 million in 10 years and 700 million in four decades. To avoid total collapse of the urban environment, India has to build new smart cities and reengineer the old ones. As the Booz study noted, reengineering old cities is extremely difficult for several

reasons. Indian cities followed different development models: some states have many small cities, while a few have megacities. The megacities are extremely dense: India has five of the 20 most densely populated cities in the world. And these cities are exploding in size with little central control. Few Indian cities have coordinated administrative structures. They generate very little money municipal revenue stands at around 2% of government revenues but even the sparse resources are often wasted. The 12th Finance Commission noted that municipal expenditure is only 0.75% of Indias GDP, while many countries spend 4-5%. Booz estimates India needs to invest $1 trillion over the next decade in cities. India could fall short here, but the Planning Commission envisages substantial investments in Indian cities in the next decade, while technology provides an opportunity to use these investments in smart ways. Cities like Chandigarh and Jamshedpur, which are centralised and managed by one authority, would probably use the new investments optimally. Other cities would work upwards from the bottom. BUILDINGS SHOW THE WAY It is common practice among large companies to be the first user of new technologies they want to propagate. So, when Cisco decided to aggressively pursue a new business in intelligent control of buildings, it first tried the ideas in its own campus in Bangalore. Cisco built a unified IP (Internet Protocol) platform to manage all devices in the building. The company says that this approach saves $150,000 and 700 hours in routine maintenance every year. Cisco is now retrofitting its campuses outside India with similar technology architectures, and developing this business in India cities. Retrofitting older buildings is now emerging as a good business opportunity for large IT companies like Honeywell and Cisco. The Clinton Climate Initiative, a five-year-old initiative by the William Clinton Foundation to drive energy savings in cities, has been driving several such retrofits in India recently by bringing together technology providers and building owners. For example, Honeywell worked with the K Raheja Corporation to retrofit three buildings in Mumbai: the Inorbit Mall, the Resort Hotel and Hotel Renaissance. One of the critical elements of the project was a performance contract, where the technology company guarantees a certain amount of savings every year after finishing the retrofit. In future, the energy utility could give preferential tariffs to buildings that can reduce energy consumption on demand, says Ajay Mathur, director general of the Bureau of Energy Efficiency. Retrofits of older buildings have a significant impact on making cities smart over the next decade. They prepare the buildings for using multiple energy inputs and by extension, smart grids by providing an intelligent platform. In fact, Honeywell is preparing to combine building retrofits in India with micro-wind turbines that will be launched in a few months. Buildings that generate their own power will be a significant part of the smart grid in the future. Cities around the world have used carbon emission reduction as one of the primary reason to build smart cities. India could ultimately reach a similar objective not by top-down control, but by bottom-up initiatives that aggregate as they expand.

In ET, November 3 How smart technologies are changing cities

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