Banda Aceh sets up new smart city unit

Banda Aceh city in Indonesia has just formed a centralized unit to coordinate public services from across agencies.

“We have just built the Smart City Command Centre, and we will launch it as soon as possible, maybe in March,” Taufik Mauliansyah, Information Systems Head, Information and Communications Agency, told GovInsider.

Banda Aceh joins several other Indonesian cities that have recently launched smart city units, including Jakarta, Bandung, Makassar, Bandung, and Bogor. The center pulls together citizens’ complaints about any public service and coordinates between agencies to fix the problem.

“We will collect reports from all citizens, whether a road is damaged, a water meter is broken or the garbage has not been cleared. Citizens can complain so that the government can fix it as soon as possible,” Mauliansyah said.

The government has built an app to make it easier for citizens to file reports. Similar to Qlue in Jakarta, the Suwarga app lets users send location-tagged photos directly to the command center. The app and its website (screenshot below) are in beta and will be launched in March.

However, citizens may not always use official channels and often turn to social media to complain.

The command center will analyze posts on social media, picking up any comments relating to Banda Aceh.

“Our citizens are always using social media to complain, and we can analyze these reports based on their location,“ he said.

The smart city unit will monitor public services from across agencies, he added. For instance, officials will monitor congestion at traffic signals and control traffic lights from the command room.

Transport is the first department to share data with the center, with health, education, and social welfare agencies to follow.

Banda Aceh has appointed a CIO to coordinate data access across agencies and is sharing data on complaints with the federal government as part of a new national plan for data sharing.