SOFT SOLUTIONS.

As the core nerve of the smart city, ICT infrastructure plays a critical role by linking and organizing all the various interactions which helps in creating two-way communication between the government and the citizen. Agith G Antony puts together the experts' views from the AEC domain.

Developing smart and sustainable buildings or structures is perhaps one of the most important but often understated aspects of creating smart cities. At the same time, smart and sustainable buildings are easier to build today than ever. Modern technologies and cutting-edge tools are available today that can help us understand and analyze the interdependence among the residents of a smart city and its infrastructure, economy and the natural environment, with the goal of making the entire city's ecosystem self-sustainable. Internet of Things (IoT) is of course the foundation of any smart city - from smart monitoring and smart lighting to smart roads and smart metering, the scope of IoT covers almost all aspects of smart cities.

Countries around the world are facing the urgent need for urbanisation and are working towards transforming every city into a smart city. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) plays a vital role in the development and operation of a smart city as it serves as a platform for collecting and aggregating field data and knowledge to further enhance understanding of how the city works in terms of use of energy, services and lifestyles. Making cities smarter requires efficient management of resources and infrastructure, a greener environment and smart governance resulting in a better quality of life for its citizens. This can be made possible by the effective use of information and communication technologies (ICTs).

Says Raj Darji, Founder & CEO, Aarav Solutions, “IoT is one of the main players in the journeys of digital transformation that are taking place through industries across the world. The Internet plays a central role in connectivity, knowledge exchange and processing, data transfer and analysis, and distributed computing to tackle the multifaceted and cross-domain challenges of smart cities. The Internet of Things continues to grow, giving our living world more influence. Many see IoT as the next big thing in the Internet's evolution. Thanks to its robust ability to capture, store, analyse and distribute data through different interfaces, the freedom to apply data and data-driven insights in real-time has become much simpler than ever before. Successful smart city is dependent on the intelligent integration of 5G, AI, edge computing, and IoT.”

Says Kalyan Vaidyanathan, Co-Founder & CEO, Nadhi Information Technologies, “Smart cities are today an integral part of the development of a city. Smart city program is a more holistic and integrated development of cities that aims to use technology to provide economically viable and eco-friendly solutions for cities and its citizens. The main goal is for the government to better manage civic infrastructure and use information and information analysis to optimize planning and delivery of services to its citizens. Creating public transportation infrastructure and connecting them will last mile options and managing traffic is one of the key components of the smart city program. Providing water, electricity and other utilities etc. are among the other components of the program. The Indian smart city program is an ambitious program that in many places is still under the construction stage. Today managing construction is not just about traditional project management, but equally about information management. Project design and execution is greatly simplified when there is streamlined information flow across the various stakeholders. This means that we need to move beyond project management into integrated project controls that allows for better collaboration and controls among the stakeholders and for generating forward looking KPIs that allows decision makers to proactively course correct projects and programs before it has a time and/or cost overruns.”

Says Paul Wallett, Regional Director, Middle East and India, Trimble Solutions, “IoT has a simple premise - it allows us to embed Internet-connected sensors inside different assets and resources - for example a building's HVAC units, water or gas pipes, or even garbage collection trucks - and then use those sensors to collect and analyze real-time data for faster decision-making. If a waste disposal truck has broken down or a pipe is leaking, IoT would allow the administration to quickly dispatch another truck or repairing staff before there is any untoward incident.”  He adds, “It also enables construction engineers and project managers to create buildings that minimise wastage of precious resources like water, electricity or gas. In fact, the benefit of integrating IoT with BIM goes well beyond construction; it even helps manage the long-term occupation and maintenance of the completed building throughout its life. As an example, maintenance workers can use the BIM model to easily and precisely locate parts that require maintenance through live reports generated by Internet-connected sensors. For example, sensors embedded into elevators or escalators can monitor key stress indicators, such as temperature or vibration patterns in real time and if abnormal patterns are detected, building maintenance can be triggered automatically to intervene before an actual failure happens.”

Speaking about the integrative approach Vijay Gupta, Founder & CEO, SoftTech Engineers Limited says, “A smart city aims at improving the quality of government services and citizen welfare. Here, technology bridges the gap between government services and citizens. In smart cities, technology plays the pivotal role in the development and improvement of city infrastructure. For any project to become successful, it requires multi-party coordination. And when we speak in terms of smart cities, there is a common goal involved, and hence, this coordination becomes crucial and essential. When we speak of infrastructure, two key things that come to our mind are housing and transportation. For both government and citizen, these two sectors have their importance. For government, it is about transparency and efficiency; while for citizens, it is about time, convenience and money. And technology can serve both the parties.”

Globalization which brings increased competition and better quality of service is pushing public services to improve customer experiences. Says Darji, “We have been leading such successful projects by implementing and powering our own solution called Adptx Cloud Infrastructure Solution and Adptx Suite Platform Architecture. Adptx cloud a comprehensive suite of cloud services designed for a smooth digital transformation in enterprise business. It helps the smart city projects to manage and reduce the complexities, reduce deployment cycle implementation. It helps them having  better visibility of its existing properties, reduced time to rollout new properties and better decision making with bird eye view of complete organization. Adptx Suite platform architecture is designed for launch of new services with innovative service bundles to enhance user experience and shorten go-to market lifecycles. The framework is versatile and creative technology solution to co-exist with on-premises legacy IT ecosystem, can be deployed over cloud and is available as software as a Service (SaaS). Adptx Suite offers next generation capabilities to empower and enhance meter reading in the smart cities. With the help of Adptx Suite utility grids can provide more reliable and efficient services to end-users.”

Speaking about the solutions offered Vaidyanathan says, “Metro connectivity is one of the integral parts of the smart city. It helps cheap and fast mode to commute from city to another and within the city as well. We are currently associated with the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) for the development, implementation and maintenance of the Integrated Project Monitoring Software (IPMS) for the civil, electrical and system work for the upcoming projects of DMRC. A cloud-based Integrated Project Monitoring Software (IPMS) will be based on Nadhi'snPulse™ platform, which is a leading ‘Made in India' platform for integrated project controls. nPulse™ streamlines project-related communications and provides the right information to the right people at the right time.”

He adds,” With the help of nPulse™ app, DMRC teams will be able to access the application to manage deliverables, resolve issues, collect field data, share files, submittals, drive project performance and get project insights using various dashboards. The software will enable a seamless flow of data from sites to various HQs and various project officials with personalized dashboards and appropriate interfaces with Autodesk BIM 360 Design models and Oracle Primavera project schedules. The solution will store construction time data linked to BIM 360 Design models for visual project construction monitoring. The cloud-based IPMS will also ensure timely and within-budget delivery of the various upcoming metro projects of DMRC. Also, users will interact with the platform through a mobile app for capturing various data and photographs from the site, which will provide them, further more clarity on the updates.”

Says Wallett, “Trimble Connect for HoloLens is a great example of how technology can streamline and aid smart construction by making the entire process smarter and more efficient. It uses ‘mixed reality' for project collaboration and allows construction professionals to visualize their 3D models as holograms placed in the real world, which is highly useful during the design and engineering stage of construction as it can add computer-generated surfaces, graphics, and objects into the real environment. This technology also results in improved safety of the construction site by allowing for a more elaborate safety plan to be designed as well as providing training on heavy equipment on real sites with augmented hazards. The outcomes are improved productivity, enhanced production control and a significantly better output.”

Another interactive technology, augmented reality is most valuable in the public sector when it is ‘lighting up' real data, accessible through the open government data initiatives that are rapidly taking hold at every level, or data generated by sensor-based networks and smart infrastructure. With the combination of smart infrastructure, big data and open data, public sector entities at all levels are able to start stitching together the fabric for smart cities, smart solutions, and connected and cross-platform solutions to actually deliver integrated services and experiences to citizens. AR then serves as the visual portal that allows citizens to make sense of data of their own city, and use it as a true public asset and resource.

Says Gupta, “I firmly believe that the future belongs to data and data-driven decisions. With the concepts like ‘Digital India' and ‘Smart Cities', the government agencies will have access to critical data about their services and usage. The system should fetch data from various sources, collate, process intelligently and analyze that to bring effective data-driven decisions based on applicable regulations identified and applied intelligently.”

According to him the time has come now where all the stakeholder involved, like government, real estate companies, technology solutions providers and citizens, should come together to take the use of technology in the AEC domain to the next level. In this effort, the ‘Smart Cities Mission' is going to play a key role. It is not just about digital innovation but data-driven decisions to make the cities ready for better tomorrow. We have to have that futuristic approach while innovating and implementing technology solutions for ‘Smart Cities Mission'.

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