Integrated approach key to public safety in a smart city

Imagine a city brimming with the latest gadgets and innovations. Yet, amidst the technological utopia, a lag in emergency response times and surveillance systems are prone to malfunction would leave crime to fester.

In such a city, the allure of smart tech fades into insignificance when basic safety needs are not met. As NEC Malaysia’s General Manager and Head of Business Units, CP Chan, puts it, "Would you invest in or live in a place where you feel constantly at risk?"

The question boils down to the importance of public safety in shaping the attractiveness of a city as a place to live in.

Rather than implementing smart city tech for tech’s sake, Chan and NEC Malaysia’s Head of Public Safety Business Unit, Stanley Tan, underlined the importance of a smart city platform, also known as an integrated command-and-control centre, to coordinate security efforts and systems.

NEC is a smart city tech provider, and NEC Malaysia’s Public safety division focuses on three key areas, namely multi-modal biometrics, identification, and command and control centers.

NEC’s public safety tech includes artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics solutions that not only predict, but proactively mitigate threats. Their uses are highly versatile and are adopted across citizen services, education, smart transportation, financial services, sports and entertainment, retail, smart buildings, and smart townships.

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A smart city platform enables real-time insights

Implementing security tech goes hand in hand with command-and-control solutions that can integrate with other subsystems in the city, including those of police and fire departments.

“If you don’t have a platform to manage the information received through the tech, it’s very hard for you to respond to them in real-time,” said Chan.

For the 18th Asian Games hosted in 2018 at two cities in Indonesia, NEC provided the organising committee a two-fold solution: a facial recognition security solution, and system integration to connect existing assets and systems as a unified platform.

Multistakeholder engagement is key when taking a systematic approach with using tech for public safety, Chan said.

Tech can only go so far in helping the relevant authorities identify an object or person of suspicion. Once they are identified, the different stakeholders, whether it be immigration or police, need to have clear protocols for responding decisively.

An integrated command-and-control centre would make it easier for governments to detect and respond to issues concerning public safety, instead of relying on multiple, siloed sources on the ground, he noted.

Lack of funding, awareness remain as government pain points

Finding the necessary funding is a key pain point faced by governments, said Chan, drawing on his observations from NEC Malaysia’s discussions with city halls and municipal leaders.

Unlike a private, gated community, public safety is often taken for granted by residents as a basic right, he explained, and there are varied public opinions on what local governments should focus on.

Public safety is multifaceted and can include environmental security from dangers caused by natural or human processes or social safety arising from crime prevention and response.

The other pain point is the misaligned perceptions of what a smart city should encompass across the public sector and tech providers. It goes beyond installing CCTVs, Chan noted.

“Many people look at adopting technology without looking at the final outcomes because they just want to meet the indicators of a smart city.

“You can install smart streetlamps, but what’s the outcome you want to achieve from that? Is it to save electricity, or to ensure that all the streets are lit for safety? These are typically not being considered,” said Tan.

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Public-private partnerships to tackle pain points

This is why public-private partnerships (PPPs) are key to aligning such expectations.

NEC Malaysia is currently in talks with the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) to reach out to more stakeholders following the policy guidelines and blueprints on smart city development in the country to articulate the importance of having an integrated command-and-control centre.

Tan shared that in Malaysia, the expectation of a smart city remains low as cities which adopt one or two smart solutions are already considered early adopters.

Many small towns also lack enough funding to start any smart city initiative at all.

“PPPs are a good way to ensure that public and private stakeholders share common objectives to deliver on outcomes,” said Chan.

Previously, the private sector would just cater for only for tech provision, and the public sector is left to run it and scale it.

According to Tan, such a partnership typically lasts 10 to 20 years, and the private partner is expected to not only provide the solution, but upkeep it – leading to “joint skin in the game”.

Private players are also part of the smart city ecosystem as its beneficiaries when they invest in a property, or work in the city, explained Chan.

He highlighted the need for tech providers, like NEC, to actively participate in smart city forums and events to set the expectations around smart city.

NEC also engages in pilots and proofs-of-concept with public sector customers, running through the process of developing outcome-based projects and using tech to achieve them.

Find out more about NEC’s smart town solutions on their website, or email them at inquiry@nec.com.my.