Public Safety in Smart Cities

Unit-II
 Public Safety

• A "smart city" is also a "Safe city" which

must enhance city performance on safety and
security for citizens to thrive as a city. A 'Safe'
city is a pre-requisite to create an attractive
economic and social environment for the
citizens, and to attract the investments for
the growth of smart city
Public Safety
 Public Safety

• With rapid urbanization due to increasing population

and urban migration, public safety and security has
become a key issue which needs urgent attention as it is key
pillar for quality of life in cities.
• In India, we have multiple public safety agencies like the
police for citizen safety and security, fire agency for fire
safety; disaster management agencies to handle
disasters; multiple public and private emergency
management services to handle medical emergencies;
NGOs and other agencies for women & child safety; other
domestic public safety issues like gas leakage is handled by
local gas dealers at city level.
Public Safety
 Public Safety

• There needs to be greater collaboration

among these agencies which can improve
delayed responses for a public safety
situation and loss of life/property.
• In some cases, there have been reported
instances when critical public safety
advisory and alerts raised by various
international/national/state level agencies
have been missed.
 Public Safety

• Providing a safe environment to live and

work for citizens and business is the key
responsibility of city government. India can
benefit from an even more integrated approach
to manage public safety and security.
• All agencies at national, state and local level
need to work together in close collaboration
to ensure provision of safe environment to
citizen and business.
Public Safety
Public Safety
 Public Safety

• Safe City/Public Safety is a key pillar for

any Smart City. With the integration of smart
citizen-centric services with the safety and
security infrastructure, the city would be able
to ensure sustainability and socio-economic
growth.
 Public Safety

• Safe city services include policing services, traffic

management and mass transportation systems,
incident response, community policing,
emergency and disaster management, surveillance
and monitoring, safety and security of critical
infrastructure and security of public places.
• All this city services needs to be integrated to
increasing collaboration among various public safety
and security agencies to provide integrated response
for any incident
Public Safety
Public Safety
Public Safety
 Some of the key Smart City technologies
relevant for Safe City include
• Some of the key Smart City technologies relevant for
Safe City include:
• 1. Panic buttons in public places and SoS mobile
application: To trigger alert to police in case of
emergency situation. Panic buttons can be provided
as physical buttons at key public places. SoS mobile
application can trigger alerts and incident reporting
with geo location to provide effective response
during an emergency situation. The alerts could not
just be routed to the Police Control Room but also to
certain selected numbers from the phone book.
Panic buttons in public places
 Some of the key Smart City technologies
relevant for Safe City include
• 2. Video analytics-enabled integrated city
command and operations centre: Video
surveillance cameras are used to monitor the
city. But it become practically difficult for
public safety agencies to 24X7 monitor these
thousands of cameras in a command center for
any incidents. So most of the time, video
surveillance is used only for post
investigation purpose only.
Video analytics-enabled integrated city
 Some of the key Smart City technologies
relevant for Safe City include
• Video analytics runs on live camera feeds and
automatically detects and raise alerts for public
safety issues like left object, suspicious behavior
etc. which makes it easier for public safety
agencies to proactively detect public safety issues
and take action to avoid incidents. Video analytics
enabled Integrated city command and
operations centre can monitor emergencies and
disasters to provide effective collaborative
response in case of emergency.
Some of the key Smart City technologies
relevant for Safe City include
Some of the key Smart City technologies
relevant for Safe City include
• 3. Helpline: 24x7 emergency helpline number to
raise any events/issues/concerns to a
centralized/localized call center which is integrated
with police stations, hospitals, etc.
 Some of the key Smart City technologies
relevant for Safe City include
• 4. Remote FIR centers: Many times First
Information Report (FIR)/Police complaint is
not registered due to various reasons.
Kiosks/systems to help citizens file a First
Information Report (FIR) remotely, irrespective
of the location of the jurisdiction where the
offence has occurred in the city. The
complainant can sign, print and scan
documents virtually as part of the experience .
Remote FIR kiosk
 Some of the key Smart City technologies
relevant for Safe City include
• 5. Community volunteer networks platform: Social
media and mobile enabled platform for
community/community groups to collaborate with
police for local safety and security issues.
• A safe city/public safety is a key pillar for a Smart
City. With increasing crime in cities and additional
pressure due to rapid urbanization, it has become very
important for modernize and take integrated
approach towards public safety to provide safe and
secure environment for citizens and business in a
Smart City.
Some of the key Smart City technologies
relevant for Safe City include
 Smart cities or safe cities?

• In various cities across India, police officers

and public safety administrators’ work
round the clock to make sure millions of its
residents are safe — an unnerving thought,
actually. It is interesting to note that the one of
the world’s largest municipal police forces —
the Delhi Police — has more than 84,500
officers.
Smart cities or safe cities?
 Smart cities or safe cities?

• The Delhi Police is perhaps the largest

metropolitan police in the world, larger
than London, Paris, New York and Tokyo,
and yet the ratio of officers to the city’s 20
million citizens is 1: 253! This reality leaves
officers hard put to keep up with citizens on
both routine days and during emergencies
 Involving citizens
• A growing number of administrators realise the
possible benefits of including citizens in public
safety initiatives. One of the best ways to work
this is through “crowdsourcing,” which involves
engaging and empowering private citizens to
help public safety professionals address daily
hazards and suspicious activities, natural
calamities, terrorist activities, crime and
vandalism by reporting information using their
smartphones.
Involving citizens
 Involving citizens
• India is witnessing a nationwide awareness
campaign initiated by the government,
leveraging various tools to keep the masses
informed. Television and radio advertisements
are one of the popular means through which
the Centre is aggressively pushing the public
to report instances, suspicious activity or
crime to a crime command centre or nearby
police stations.
Involving citizens
 Involving citizens
• Active citizen engagement is extremely
essential in monitoring and these places as
well as keeping the police updated of
suspicious activities.
• This is the ideal time to harness the
potential of crowdsourcing. More and more
people are using smartphones and social
media technology than ever before.
 Smart Reporting
In many initiatives, citizens can submit
reports and updates anonymously using a
laptop or desktop computer. With the third
largest smartphone market in the world, India
is predicted to see the number of mobile internet
users reach 314 million by 2017. India is making
the leap from features phones to smartphones
quickly, an important factor that makes
citizen engagement possible.
Smart Reporting
 Smart Reporting
• Additionally, due to this, data usage and
users on social media portals such as
Twitter and Facebook have grown manifold
over the past few years. With the majority of
citizens accessing these services and
generating vast amounts of data on a day-to-
day basis, there is an increasing need to be
able to analyse this to gain actionable
intelligence.
Smart Reporting
 Social Tools
India should take advantage of the smart city
initiative and restructure accordingly in this
time of change. Today, there are command-and-
control platforms that can provide officials with
intelligence and insights from social media
sites, anonymous tips and even public safety
apps that enable real-time event reporting and
live streaming directly, which can then be sent to
first responders in the field.
 Social Tools
• Correlating these citizen reports with
incoming data from other systems, such as
video surveillance, traffic monitoring,
gunshot detection sensors, and weather
reports allows officials to gain a better
understanding of what is happening at any
moment, as well as trends that may emerge
over time.
 Social Tools
• Correlating these citizen reports with
incoming data from other systems, such as
video surveillance, traffic monitoring,
gunshot detection sensors, and weather
reports allows officials to gain a better
understanding of what is happening at any
moment, as well as trends that may emerge
over time.
 Social Tools
• Crowdsourcing is also useful for personal
protection and real-time response. Given the
growing concern around female safety in India,
several developers in the country have created
apps in this regard. Through this, women, in case
of an emergency, can send a distress signal to
police control rooms in the vicinity informing
them of their geo location. This would help the
police respond faster and more effectively in
high risk areas.
 References
 (Vishvesh Prabhakar is MD Sustainability, Sanjeev
Gupta MD Health & Public Services and
Rajul Mehrotra Smart Cities and Technology Subject
Matter Expert at Accenture in India)
• http://www.smartcitieschallenge.in/
• http://smartcitiescouncil.com/
• http://smartcitiesofindia.in/
Thanks..