Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) subsidiary CMC, which is into systems engineering and integration, has designed and implemented an intelligent transport system for Karnataka State Road Transport Corp (KSRTC) in Mysore. Through this innovative project, KSRTC is addressing the critical issue of customer service through real time dissemination of information of arrival of bus to all its users obtained through satellite-based GPS, through large LED displays at bus stops and SMS messages. In a recent interaction, R Ramanan, MD & CEO, CMC, tells Sudhir Chowdhary that the Mysore initiative is a project of national importance, which can be replicated to make public transport more commuter-friendly and efficient in all our cities, which are undergoing urban renewal. Excerpts:

Urban chaos prevails in most big Indian cities, with haphazard development and lack of proper planning. Are our master plans not effective or not being effectively implemented?

The problem is across all sides of master plans?availability, content and implementation. Only 24% of India?s 7,935 towns and cities have master plans. These urban master plans are formulated broadly in the context of Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) scheme implementation guided under 74th CAA and its subsequent implementation by states. On paper, while these town/cities may have master plans, they are esoteric rather than practical and riddled with exceptions.

While urban development has been stated agenda in some states like Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, the disciplinary identity of planning function has diminished and is being recognised as vital now. Today?s planners are busy creating a bureaucratic maze, issuing permits and enforcing planning and building code while losing focus on proactive and pre-emptive planning. We still have not been able to make urban planning a core-respected function, investing with skilled people with fact-based planning.

Which technologies will play a main role in making our cities smart?

Smart cities deliver sustainable outcomes through the analysis of contextual information exchanges between various parts of the functions discharged directly or under supervision of city government. The interaction between sector-specific and intra-sector information flows results in more resource- efficient cities that enable more sustainable citizen services.

This definition of smart cities implies that while several technologies can be brought into play, the core issue in India will be around policy makers, planners and elected representatives recognising the following non-technology issues. Given a large number of transformations of cities to smart-city paradigm will happen in Brownfield environment (with very few greenfield deployments), making this happen in financially sustainable way and in context of current governance models is a critical challenge.

Role of some of the key technologies is unmistakable as we can now do things with technology that we could not do ten years ago…

Absolutely. GIS maps and software, which are now progressing under NUSI programme are basic requirement, from technology perspective to make city master plan possible. These also include smart sense and actuate technologies like M2M technologies, which can encompass capture information from power grids, road transport network, household consumptions, building monitoring, health monitoring systems, water supplies, sanitation and disposal, traffic, emergency response systems and can churn in required analytics to actuate the right responses in closed loop. This usually is backed by centralisation and advanced visualisation technologies, which can analyse vast amount of data cohesively post and pre-pattern/correlation recognition.

Then, intelligent transport systems can lead to larger use of public transport and thereby reducing carbon footprint and traffic congestion in cities. Also, smart governance by enabling e-delivery of services like life-event services, transactional services seamlessly when and where residents want them using biometrics, mobile apps and online channels?all these are possible.

CMC is a driver in making our cities smart (Mysore in Karnataka being the first city to deploy a smart solution). Can you tell us what?s happening in this space in India? Do you think intelligent transport system will be the next chapter in India?s infrastructure story?

Public transport currently accounts for 22% of urban transport in India?which is way below basic service standard of 50% and best in class standard of 82% worldwide. Of the 85 cities, with population of more than half a million, only 20 cities have city bus service. This is all leading to increased private transport usage, pollution, congestion and unsafe travel, coupled with higher costs for poor.

Intelligent transport systems are first of the many steps we see that will drive increased use of public transport as users can be better informed and make safer, coordinated choice of transport network available to them. Under JNNURM many cities are in the process of taking up similar initiatives similar to the one taken up by KSRTC in Mysore.

We expect that this trend will be coupled with integrated intelligent transport system in future where multi-mode travel will be easily enabled and journey planning in dynamic constrained-based environment will be easily possible for commuters. This does imply that different corridors and modes have to merge in one single seamless system from commuter point of view. Seamless exchange and single tickets over all this system will be norm of the day. We can already see evidence of the same in national common mobility card standard which allows seamless travel between metro, taxi, bus and train, apart from parking and toll.

What kind of innovations will shape up the future urban infrastructure turf in India?

Technology wise, majority of urban infrastructure innovations will happen around India-specific tailoring of technology to address socio-economic parity, slum removal, citizen empowerment and equal participation in city governance. In urban transportation, integrated intelligent public transport systems will drive increased adoption of public transportation. On-demand energy services as well as improved city design for energy efficient clusters with proactive monitoring and management of energy consumption in building, appliances, street lamps will drive improved energy efficiency and reduced emissions. In energy and utility side, emphasis may be towards micro-generation and network management, with emphasis on demand-side management (DSM) systems to support energy distribution control, energy balancing and network monitoring.

What will the cities/towns infrastructure look like in 10 years?

In India, we believe we will see major renewal and move towards self-sufficient smart tier-I and tier-II cities. Mega-cities will also morph into mega-regions when there is a sufficient high-speed transport corridor to connect mega-cities with tier-II cities. Specialist cities are likely to emerge focusing on tourism or education or manufacturing. In India, we will see emergence of greenfield 20-25 cities near the mega-cities, with world-class sustainable transport, water, electricity and transportation links. We are likely to reach the goal of 0% slum dwelling by adopting a differentiated affordable housing model.

Looking 10 years from now, the infrastructure will be dynamic, aggregated, intelligent, adaptive and focused to adapt and deliver citizen services and meet cities priorities using India-specific adaptions of technologies.

The infrastructure, as we see it, will have enough ICT technologies to drive smart mobility, smart environment, smart living and smart governance. Most of the ICT infrastructure will run on community clouds (specialised public clouds which give benefit of elasticity but also comply to required privacy, security and financial norms of city governments).