Smart Cities Client Stories

City digital services index in Israel

Recognizing the need for a comprehensive national digital policy, the Israeli government established the Digital Israel Bureau to accelerate economic growth, reduce socio-economic gaps, and make government services smarter, faster, and more accessible.

One of the key initiatives under the National Digital Program was to build the foundational architecture for a national digital index. However, while the national digital index is intended to measure the efficacy of federal or national digital services, Israel still lacked an index that could measure digital services available locally. So a local digital index was conceived to benchmark basic digital services at a decentralized level—across 254 cities and municipalities.

The purpose of the exercise was to examine the digital services offered on websites of all the local authorities in Israel, including how to register kids in schools, pay for parking tickets, pay for utility bills, and apply for a business license.

Since the launch, the index has been well-received by local governments and citizens. And there are plans for further expansion, which include adding more indicators to increase its breadth and depth and to develop a more robust scoring system.

Read or download the full case study to learn more.

Or if you are interested in starting a conversation on how we can help your city, get in touch with Idan Urman and Noa Feller.

Helping the city of San Diego "Get It Done"

With a population of around 1.4 million, San Diego is the second-largest city in the state of California. A city of this size should ideally have a dedicated communication channel for residents to report non-emergency problems, such as potholes, street light repair, illegal dumping, and graffiti. However, unlike most major cities in the US, San Diego did not have a centralized process or system in place for residents to report these types for issues until very recently.

In 2016, the lack of dedicated 311 system nearly created a crisis in the city's 911 call center because the sheer volume of calls made it difficult for the 911 dispatchers to distinguish between life-threatening and nonpriority situations. The city's administration realized that it needed a system that could effectively address non-emergency issues. So in May 2016, San Diego piloted a Salesforce-based Get It Done app and case management solution with the Transportation and Storm Water (TSW) department.

The Get It Done app has made lives easier for both the city's residents and its internal employees. Before its deployment, residents often did not know whom to contact for non-emergency issues. If they were successful in reporting an issue, most communications related to their issue was handled via internal emails and phone calls.

In many cases, these emails ended up going to the wrong department, which would then require it to be rerouted to the correct department by a city worker. As a result, information was lost in translation, and some of the requests never saw the light of the day. Now, residents can download the app or go to the website to upload photos of the problem, enter a few details about the issue, and then submit their requests.

Looking forward, the city of San Diego plans to expand the breadth and depth of the services offered through Get It Done.

Read or download the full case study to learn more.

Or if you are interested in starting a conversation on how we can help your city, get in touch with Thomas Beyer, James Qua, and David Lindstrom.

Improving "on-time" public works services in Orange County

Orange County, California—with a population of more than 3 million—is the sixth-most populous county in the United States. Covering an area of nearly 800 square miles, day-to-day governance of a county of this size comes with its own set of challenges, especially in terms of delivering infrastructure services.

Until early 2017, residents who wanted to report an issue to the public works department had to register a service request by calling a help desk or completing an online form. The service requests that were received did not include the required geographic location information. County staff would use multiple sources to conduct research then add the location information to the service request prior to sending it to the inspection and maintenance staff.

Residents would be contacted by staff throughout the life cycle of the service request, and residents had to call in if they wanted to check the status of a service request.

In April 2017, the department launched "myOC eServices." This new web- and mobile-enabled portal not only streamlined the service request process for residents, but also modernized the way the public works department addressed these requests and managed its resources.

The myOC eServices tool provides residents with an easily accessible way to navigate city services. Residents visiting the online portal first select the service they require. Service requests then flow to the appropriate service area within the department with a standard priority where a central team reviews and visualizes the request on a service request map linked to the County GIS System along with other requests.

This new visualization capability has allowed the department managers to identify process bottlenecks and organize resources to address pockets of high activity within the county. Phase two of deployment, targeting a suite of services such as applying for permits, is already underway.

Read or download the full case study to learn more.

Or if you are interested in starting a conversation on how we can help your city, get in touch with Debasis Saha and Stephen Lee.

Command center approach to drive efficiencies at Cascais

Cascais, located within the Lisbon metropolitan area of Portugal, boasts of a gorgeous coastline that attracts more than 1.2 million tourists every year. With a mid-sized population of around 206,0002, Cascais is not your run-of-the-mill tourist destination. The city has made it its mission to "test innovative solutions capable of being scaled."

Over the past few years, the city has implemented a large portfolio of technology-based improvements. But the mobility domain in Cascais is where the city appears to have made some real strides. MobiCascais, the mobility-as-a-service solution that launched in 2016, integrates different public and private players into one single collaborative ecosystem.

MobiCascais allows users to reserve, manage, and pay for the use of every mobility-connected service in Cascais by paying a daily, weekly, monthly, or even a yearly fee. Services such as bike sharing, smart parking, taxi rides, carpooling, and information on transport routes and stations can be accessed through a seamless card that users can connect to through an app and a web portal.

However, not all domains in Cascais are as advanced as mobility. The city continues to evolve its ecosystem of players and implement more initiatives, but a lack a unified vision across domains seems to impede real progress on the ground. To address this issue, Cascais is developing a managed services command center.

The plan entails redefining the city's operational model by integrating data and processes from each of its 12 domains (for now) under a Control Coordination Center (C3). The first step in the integration process would be to define processes, organization, people, KPIs, and catalog of city technical services that each vertical provides.

Read or download the full case study to learn more.

Or if you are interested in starting a conversation on how we can help your city, get in touch with Miguel Eiras Antunes.

Project management of the 100-city smart city mission in India

The urban growth rate in India has been steep in the past couple of decades. The number of cities with a population of 1 million or more went up from 35 to 53 between 2001 and 2011. The United Nations has predicted that between 2014 and 2050, India will add another 404 million people to its urban population and will have the highest rate of urbanization among all nations.

Such rapid urbanization will put tremendous pressure on existing city services such as water, sanitation, sewage, schools, health, and transportation. To accelerate the response to this growing urbanization challenge, the Government of India launched the Smart Cities Mission program. The ultimate goal: develop 100 smart cities by 2022. A smart city development push at this scale from a central government is one of its kind. The central government will invest $7.5 billion over five years—an average of $16 million per city per year.

After the program launch in 2015, the Government of India held the India Smart Cities Challenge inviting participation from cities across India. But the Smart Cities Mission finds itself at a crossroads today. The governance structure, financing, participant cities, and smart city projects are all in place. However, the success of the program will hinge on how cities and the Government of India are able to track and monitor progress. This is where the central mission management agency under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs plays a vital role.

The mission management agency monitors the progress of all participant cities, keeps track of the appointed project management consultants in each city, provides support in knowledge sharing on best practices, and helps resolve specific implementation challenges.

Over the next five years, the mission management agency will closely track progress against the goals set by each city; and based on their tracking and monitoring, will suggest course correction wherever required.

Read or download the full case study to learn more.

Or if you are interested in starting a conversation on how we can help your city, get in touch with Anindya Mallick and Debashish Biswas.

A roadmap to drive smart city progress in Columbus, Ohio

The city of Columbus, Ohio, made national headlines in June 2016 when it won the US Department of Transportation's Smart City Challenge. Columbus was in competition with 77 other cities and was selected after showcasing a holistic and comprehensive vision of "how technology can help all residents move better and access opportunity."

The smart city challenge provided a grant of $40 million from the federal Department of Transportation (DoT), and another $10 million from Vulcan Inc., a philanthropy based in Seattle. A Smart Columbus team was created which included participation from the city, private sector, and academia to support Columbus's vision, which is "to be the model for connected cities of the future," with mobility as a key item. The city developed four foundational goals for their smart city journey:

1. Drive economic growth
2. Improve people's quality of life
3. Foster sustainability
4. Improve safety

Based on these foundational goals, the Smart Columbus team crafted a roadmap for moving ahead. A key aspect of the roadmap is to build a single digital platform for the city where all smart city applications can be integrated.

Winning the DoT award and crafting a roadmap for the future has proven to be a catalyst in driving smart city investment in Columbus. The city has been able to showcase its smart city plans to various stakeholders and a growing number of partners in the smart-city ecosystem, growing its initial funding of $50 million to nearly $500 million through the end of 2017.

Read or download the full case study to learn more.

Or if you are interested in starting a conversation on how we can help your city, get in touch with Rana Sen and Scott Corwin.

Data-driven approach to waste management in Amman

Between 2004 and 2015, Amman, Jordan's population more than doubled from approximately 2 to over 4 million¹, thus putting pressure on outdated urban infrastructure and overburdened public services. Driven largely by the Syrian refugee crisis, Amman has also absorbed 1 million new residents over the past three years.² Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) is directly responsible for delivering a number of services to this growing and evolving population, from waste management to road maintenance to licensure.

One of the biggest challenges such cities face is effectively managing solid waste in light of this kind of rapid growth. In the case of Amman, improving solid waste management presented a unique challenge due to its spatial limitations, as well as infrastructure, human, and financial resource constraints. Poor solid waste management at every stage—from street sweeping, household pickup, to disposal in landfills can undermine citizen confidence in government and has the potential to disrupt economic growth. In some cases, the inability to deliver basic waste services can trigger economic or political instability, as seen recently in Beirut, Lebanon.³ Many cities are facing similar challenges.

The next three decades will see a rapid change in urban demographics with the emergence of "megacities" and the rise of secondary cities, which are facing even greater challenges with population growth, combined with poor infrastructure, lack of investment, and insufficient capacity.⁴ The United Nations (UN) estimates that 66 percent of the world population will live in urban areas by 2050.⁵How Amman is using a smart city approach to address this problem can be a guide for other urban centers struggling with booming populations.

Amman produces nearly 900,000 tons of solid waste annually. The GAM manages this service for residents throughout its entire lifecycle across 22 administrative districts. Prior to implementing its smart city solution, waste management operations were inefficient, with trucks not completely filled while others skipped stops due to volume limits. There was also little direct oversight of service provision, and GAM lacked a rigorous system for using data to identify problem areas in delivery and adjust with varying demand.⁶

To tackle this challenge, the Mayor's office launched a pilot program called CityPerform in 2015, which drew inspiration from Baltimore's municipal management innovation, CitiStat. The aim of the CitiStat model is to gather data on an array of performance indicators, including response times for things like pothole abatement, trash collection, and snow removal, as well as the prevalence of problems such as illegal dumping, vacant buildings, and sewage overflows. Once collected, this data can be analyzed with the assistance of computerized databases and geographic mapping to target areas of underperformance.⁷

GAM's CityPerform was implemented in multiple phases. Phase One focused on an overall understanding of the institutional, financial, and technical aspects of solid waste services under the GAM's responsibility. Phase Two involved refining a performance management framework, with defined indicators and targets with a focus on usability. GAM already had a large number of datasets, but many were disorganized, unreliable, and not available in a shareable format.⁸

In subsequent phases, a process was established so that the mayor could meet with the heads of the various departments periodically, discuss progress against performance indicators, and resolve to take action to address problem areas. Executive management dashboards using data and visual graphics helped in tracking areas such as route optimization, wait time, customer feedback, collection efficiency, and staff utilization on a real-time basis. For instance, the dashboards gave a breakup of waste tonnage by district, distribution of the number of complaints resolved, and a graphical depiction of the efficiency of the workforce. These meetings were a great way to promote internal accountability, and redirect resources to improve performance in underperforming areas.⁹

The CityPerform pilot in solid waste management resulted in a practical, adaptable, and locally sustainable process that made the best use of available data in improving efficiency in solid waste services. A new fleet tracking system and updated maps helped to meet operational needs more efficiently. The daily field reporting of tonnage collected helped to identify collection issues before they became critical. A data-driven management model, combined with enhanced technological capabilities, has been driving positive results for Amman.

"Through this model, the city hopes to realize results in improved and more efficient solid waste services, and apply the same model to other sectors gradually, for the sake of continued development and improvement of services provided to citizens," states Amman's Mayor Aqel Biltaji.¹⁰

Endnotes

¹ Greater Amman Municipality, "GAM- About Amman," http://www.ammancity.gov.jo/en/gam/amman.asp, accessed November 22, 2016

² Deloitte Jordan project team, November 16, 2016

³ Al Jazeera, "Lebanese protest against waste-disposal crisis," July 26, 2015, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/07/lebanon-beirut-trash-rubbish-crisis-150725060723178.html

⁴ Deloitte University Press, "Megacities," http://government-2020.dupress.com/driver/megacities/, accessed November 22, 2016

⁵ United Nations, "World's population increasingly urban with more than half living in urban areas," July 10, 2014, http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/world-urbanization-prospects-2014.html.

⁶ Deloitte Jordan project team, November 16, 2016

⁷ Center for American Progress, "The CitiStat model: How data-driven government can increase efficiency and effectiveness," April 2007, https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2007/04/pdf/citistat_ report.pdf.

⁸ Deloitte Jordan project team, November 16, 2016

⁹ ibid

¹⁰ Deloitte, "Deloitte works with Greater Amman Municipality to improve internal management practices to deliver better services to residents of Amman," December 10, 2015, https://www2.deloitte.com/sa/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/Deloitte-works-with-Amman-Municipality-improve-internal-management-practices.html.

If you're interested in starting a conversation on how we can help your city, get in touch with Kate Thompson.

Buenos Aires uses technology for more responsive service delivery

With a population of more than 3 million spread over 78 square miles, Buenos Aires owns more than one million pieces of public infrastructure. Maintaining such a vast public infrastructure can be a challenge. The Argentine city has long allowed citizens to log complaints or service requests through a call center for everything from fixing a pothole to removing graffiti. Unfortunately, the feedback mechanism was largely ineffective since the city was very slow in addressing those complaints, averaging 600 days (almost two years) to resolve a complaint in 2011.

In 2010, city hall resolved to fix this problem. Part of the solution was a new information technology (IT) system that would streamline information flow and improve departmental coordination.

The city launched a mobile app that citizens could use to register complaints. The app, using an integrated geographic information system (GIS) technology, sends the location of the complaint to the ministry and work is assigned to the nearest vendor to resolve the issue. To close the loop, a city street inspector—using a mobile device—validates the work done by the vendor and uploads a picture through the app showing the issue was resolved.

The granular data that Buenos Aires is collecting via sensors and crowdsourcing also enables the city to evolve hyperlocal solutions for certain areas. The responsive system has created tremendous impact on the city's quality of life parameters. The average time to resolve a complaint plunged 93 percent without additional budget, allowing the city to fix more problems in less time.

Read or download the full case study to learn more.

Or if you are interested in starting a conversation on how we can help your city, get in touch with Alvaro Casalins.

Congestion charging cuts car usage in Central London

London's congestion charging model, implemented in 2003 in Central London and then later expanded to Western parts of the English city, is still more than a decade later the largest implementation of its kind in the world. The objective: Reduce congestion by bringing about a modal shift away from single passenger vehicles in central London. The ultimate success of the scheme can be attributed to the presence of a political champion, a detailed implementation strategy, and careful stakeholder management.

The congestion charging area involves a network of over 600 cameras¹ at 174 entry/exit points across 21 square kilometers.² The cameras record images of vehicles entering and exiting the zone. To charge drivers, vehicles are matched with the database of registration via an Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system.

The sheer size and complexity of the project meant technological and operational challenges were bound to be there. However, the scheme also encountered some political and social challenges with a huge task of achieving support for the initiative and then managing stakeholders who resisted the scheme. Here, the leadership of Ken Livingstone, then mayor of London, as a political champion was critical. The mayor along with a few employees of Transport for London (TfL) devised a strategy to gain support from stakeholders by engaging them throughout the design of the scheme.

In July 2000, Livingstone published a discussion paper "Hearing London's Views" and shared the paper with nearly 400 key stakeholders, including London boroughs, MPs, members of the European Parliament, business groups and transport operators. In January 2001, the mayor released "Transport Strategy" for public consultation which received 8,000 responses, most of them favoring the proposed scheme.³ This approach allowed for a host of modifications to the scheme, many of which are now considered critical to the general acceptance of the congestion charge. For instance, the 90 percent discount given to residents who live within the road charging zone.⁴

On the technology front, the city deployed proven technologies to reduce the risk of failure. TfL developed predictive go-live scenarios which were used to test operational and emergency decision-making processes prior to launch day. This approach helped TfL transition from a focus on project and implementation risks toward active contingency planning. On the operational front, the city developed operational processes to be used once the scheme went live.

Ultimately, the scheme went live in February 2003. Since then, the scheme has delivered significant traffic reduction benefits in central London. After the first 12 months of the scheme, measurements of congestion indicated an average reduction in congestion of 30 percent. The traffic flow has reduced in London and is more pronounced in central London, where vehicle kilometers fell by 23 percent between 2000 and 2012.⁵ Further, car usage in central London fell 53 percent between 2000 and 2014. During the same time, bus and bike commuting usage increased 60 percent and 203 percent, respectively.⁶

The charging scheme underwent many changes since its launch. For instance, payments have moved from simple SMS-based to a direct Auto Pay option that collates monthly payments and charges the credit or debit card.⁷ The scheme has also freed-up space in the congestion charge zones, which TfL has used to prioritize public transport, pedestrian, and bike traffic. However, in recent years, the increase in road works by utilities, general development activity, and a huge construction boom in London have slowed traffic speeds in the congestion charge zone.⁸ Further, the emergence of car-hailing and e-commerce companies in London have led to more vehicles on the road, thereby increasing the traffic congestion in the recent year.⁹

From 2003 to 2013, about €1.2 billion of net revenue from congestion charging has been invested in developing bus network, road and bridge improvement, walking, and cycling schemes.¹⁰ The investments in alternative modes of transportation has greatly increased the quality of life of London residents.

Endnotes
¹ Richard Schooling, "Fleet special: congestion charging," AccountancyAge, March 22, 2007, https://www.accountancyage.com/aa/feature/1778930/fleet-special-congestion-charging.

² Georgia Santos and Blake Shaffer, "Preliminary Results of the London Congestion Charging Scheme," Public Works Management and Policy, 9, no. 2 (October 2004): 164-181.

³ Energy Foundation China, "International Best Practices for Congestion Charge and Low Emissions Zone," August 12, 2014, http://www.efchina.org/Attachments/Report/reports-20140812-en/reports-20140812-en.

⁴ William D. Eggers and John O'leray, If we can put a man on the moon (Boston: Harvard Business Press, 2009), 107-124.

⁵ TfL,"Impact Assessment: Public and stakeholder consultation on a Variation Order to modify the Congestion Charging scheme," January 2014, https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/roads/cc-changes-march-2014/user_uploads/cc-impact-assessment.pdf.

⁶ TfL, "Travel in London: Report 8," 2015, http://content.tfl.gov.uk/travel-in-london-report-8.pdf.

⁷ TfL website, "Congestion Charge payments," https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/congestion-charge/paying-the-congestion-charge, accessed on December 13, 2016.

⁸ TfL,"Impact Assessment: Public and stakeholder consultation on a Variation Order to modify the Congestion Charging scheme," January 2014, https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/roads/cc-changes-march-2014/user_uploads/cc-impact-assessment.pdf.

⁹ Interview with Deloitte UK project team, November 15, 2016.

¹⁰ TfL, "Congestion Charge changes to improve customer service," May 28, 2014, https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2014/may/congestion-charge-changes-to-improve-customer-service.

If yo're interested in starting a conversation on how we can help your city, get in touch with Simon Dixon. 

Sensors and effective governance makes Santander a smart city

The SmartSantander project in the Spanish city of Santander offers a preview of the possibilities: How open data and the role of citizens can transform a city. The city-run project involves 20,000 sensors that measure traffic flow, parking spaces, noise, pollution, temperature, moisture levels, and other metrics from fixed locations such as buildings, parks, streetlights, and bus stops.¹ Santander residents can add to the information flow by downloading the Pulse of the City (PoC) app that turns their smartphones into sensors.

But the city realized that merely installing sensors won't make the city smart. It requires a governance structure and data management process that could effectively use information collected via sensors. The city designed a strategy to identify service areas—economy, finance, energy, environment, water and waste management, and mobility—which could be transformed by leveraging data from sensors.

The city council organized workshops with the staff of each identified service area and made them aware of how the data could help improve service delivery, reduce the cost of service delivery, and how and where to get this data.² The data were all stored in a centralized cloud platform for easy access to city officials.³

The city officials analyze data in real-time to adjust the amount of energy they use, the number of trash pickups needed in a given week, and how much water to sprinkle on the lawns of city parks.⁴ The citizens can also tap into that data via the PoC app and use it for their daily needs. They can use real-time traffic information to plan their commute and also use the same data to know when the next bus is due. An asthma patient can plan her day to avoid areas of high pollution, while another citizen can use the app to track the progress on a complaint filed for road maintenance.

They have also made the information available to developers to create consumer services. For example, SmartSantanderRA, an augmented reality mobile application, includes information on more than 2,700 beaches, parks, monuments, tourism offices, and other city sites. The user just points her smartphone to a particular building—say, a concert hall—to get a short description about events taking place there and who is performing. The app also allows real-time access to traffic flows, weather reports and forecasts, public bus information, and bike-rental services.⁵

It is not hard to imagine developers eventually using the data to create an app locating the nearest parking spot. To test it, they could roll it out to residents who have opted to turn their smartphones into sensors and fine-tune it based on user feedback. In this way, citizens play the role of "prosumers" in the SmartSantander project contributing to the data stream by turning their smartphones into sensors, and also as users of services.

Endnotes

¹ SmartSantander, "Santander on FIRE (Future Internet Research & Experimentation)," www.smartsantander.eu/, accessed on December 7, 2016.

² Interview with Deloitte Spain project team, December 1, 2016.

³ Mobile World Capital, "The Spanish City of Santander to Become a Global Smart City," November 11, 2013, http://mobileworldcapital.com/250/.

⁴ Tod Newcombe, "Santander: The Smartest Smart City," Governing, May 2014, www.governing.com/topics/urban/gov-santander-spainsmart-city.html.

⁵ SmartSantander, "SmartSantanderRA: Santander Augmented Reality Application," www.smartsantander.eu/index.php/blog/item/174-smartsantanderra-santander-augmented-reality-application, accessed on December 2, 2015.

If yo're interested in starting a conversation on how we can help your city, get in touch with Ana Andueza.

Ecosystem approach leads to innovative solutions in Amsterdam

Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands, wanted to become more innovative. But like many cities, it faced a challenge: How to drive innovation when most city department heads were focused on day-to-day operations?

City administrators realized that an ecosystem model could bring together various stakeholders to build smart city solutions. New and innovative solutions were applied to the city's most sticky problems. The city was able to develop seven ideas initially, which were then filtered down to two most critical areas: mobility and poverty reduction.

In line with their sustainable mobility goals, the city recently launched a pilot project called Vehicle2grid. The aim of the pilot is to help residents store their locally produced solar energy to their electric car batteries. The pilot involves several ecosystem partners, such as Cofely, Alliander, Mitsubishi Motors Corporation, Amsterdam Smart City, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, and the borough of Nieuw-West. It is a good example of how diverse ecosystem players, in this case car manufacturers, city government, and academia, can come together to test an innovative solution.

Read or download the full case study to learn more.

Or if you are interested in starting a conversation on how we can help your city, get in touch with Hans Teuben, Andries van Dijk, and Daniel Charite.

From Orange County to Buenos Aires, take a more comprehensive look at how we're working with smart cities around the world.

Read or download our full library of case studies to learn more.