Current General Studies Magazine (March 2016)
General Studies - III "Science and Technology Based Article" (On the road to smartness)
With the second round of 13 cities making it to the Centre’s list, there are now 33 urban agglomerations that have made a successful bid to become “smart cities”. The idea of city managers accepting a ‘challenge’ to make specific ‘smart’ proposals is being followed in several countries at different levels of development. Cities in the developed world are focussed on self-driving cars, electric vehicles and smart grids, while those in India are yet to meaningfully address basic issues such as walkability, public transport, waste management and pollution. This was evident in the latest round, for instance, with the Lucknow municipal administration, which made the best-rated bid, finding that 58 per cent of residents who took part in its online survey cited traffic and transport as their top priority, with 24 per cent highlighting solid waste management. Unsurprisingly, this is also representative of the national story. City administrations have done a poor job of gathering data available from multiple sources and analysing them to make informed decisions on civic services. A lot of new information about what people do is now available from commercial services that use mobile phone applications, such as taxi companies, and the anonymised data with them can aid planning.