Smart Cities and GIS

Smart Cities in the Indian Context

Urbanization is causing a huge challenge for governments in many parts of the world; especially in India and China. A better educated neo-middle class is emerging fast that expects better facilities and living conditions to be made available to them. It is extremely important to build new cities or to expand existing cities to manage the challenges of migration of the population from rural areas to urban areas and to ensure better quality of life for the migrants.

The Indian government has recently announced the intention to build 100 smart cities by 2020.

What is Smart City?

There are many ways to define a Smart City; in simple words – Smart City is a developed urban area that creates sustainable economic development and high quality of life by excelling in multiple key areas like economy, environment, mobility, governance, people and living conditions.

A smart city's core infrastructure is information and communications technology with a network of sensors, cameras, wire-less devices and data centers. Smart cities use sustainable materials for building facilities and reduce energy consumption.

The indicators for Smart Cities may change with context. In the current Indian socio-economic conditions, the following indicators are more relevant:

1. Smart Urban Planning

2. Healthy environment

3. Safe and happy living

4. Culturally vibrant

5. Inclusive Society

6. Green and smart buildings

7. Smart utilities (Water, Electricity, Gas)

8. Transparency in governance backed by ICT (Information and Communication Technology)

9. Education, social and economic development

10. Smart management of supply and demand

11. Smart Transportation

12. Integrated ICT

Environment monitoring and management, smart utilities, waste management, intelligent parking, traffic management, street lighting, CCTV surveillance and public services could be the initial areas to be considered while conceptualizing smart cities in India.

Role of GIS in Smart Cities

GIS (Geographical Information System) plays a very important role in planning, execution and management of Smart Cities. Though GIS has a role in all the above indicators; its role will be more crucial in Smart urban planning; creating healthy environment; public safety; green and smart buildings; Smart utilities; Smart transportation and integrated ICT.

Geodesign will be the key framework for conceptualizing and planning for smart cities; it will assist at every stage from project conceptualizing to site-analysis, design specifications, stakeholder participation and collaboration, design creation, simulation and evaluation. The underlying GIS will be collaboration tool which will facilitate interaction of all stake-holders in a seamless manner thorough a variety of devices – computers, tablets and smart phones included.

3D modeling software can be used to build 3D models of entire city and design aspects can be tested and fine-tuned to ensure compliance with design parameters.

GIS forms the back-bone when it comes to the management of smart cities. Information transmitted through sensors, CCTV camera feeds, live feeds from social networks like Twitter etc. can be processed and seen live on maps, analyzed and used for decision making. Dash-boards can be created and accessed from different devices like computers, tablets and smart phones. Citizen-centric apps can be developed for use by the inhabitants making their interaction with the city administrators easy.