City Operations Centre Is About Citizen Satisfaction, Not Technology Savviness

City Operations Centre Is About Citizen Satisfaction, Not Technology Savviness

- Ganesh Ramamoorthy

India, the world’s second largest populous country with its unique environmental, demographic and economic constraints, continues to push forward its Smart City mission. Many cities have rolled out numerous projects ranging from city-wide WiFi, smart street lighting, smart transportation to smart parking and smart water and wastewater management. Central to these is the City Operations Centre, aimed at providing a real-time, one view of the status and condition of the critical components of the city to city planners and decision makers.

A city operations centre is clearly the right thing to do for a city that aspires to transform into a ‘smart’ one – there is no doubt on that. But it is important to establish the motivation and agree upon the intended purpose and benefits of the city command centre clearly before embarking on this path. Will they be the eyes and ears meant to gather and monitor critical activities of the city? Or will they also be the ‘brain’ that analyze the city activities in real-time and propose appropriate preventive and prediction actions?

Development of cities in the face of increasing global urbanization is closely linked to the emerging economic, environmental, and demographic opportunities in a society. To exploit these opportunities, cities must align support functions such as maintaining air quality, managing energy and water supply services that citizens demand or the government mandates in such a manner that they cater to the individual citizen needs and create a dynamic service experience for them. But city officials must also balance resources against environmental sustainability concerns and the cost of delivering these support functions.