Let us assume the city planners have used the necessary digital tools to look at the "big picture" and there are smart building owners and smart facilities operators who have implemented a Building Automation System (BAS). This will take care of the planning and some aspects of the management pieces of Smart Cities and Smart Buildings. Furthermore, also let us assume that, perhaps, to ensure uniformity and consistency in the approach to planning a "Smart City" the city authorities and planners have also considered and made it a mandatory requirement for digitized filing of all building construction plans for all statutory governmental approvals and for the subsequent maintenance of buildings constructed.
However, this could only be the first step... A Smart City needs to have more...a Smart City needs "Smart Infrastructure Services" in form of - "Smart Energy", "Smart Water Management", "Smart Transportation".
When we talk about "Smart Infrastructure" what we are really talking about is the deployment of smart solutions through use of technologies such as - cloud computing, analytics and sensors in a way to be able to detect wastage and "leaks". It is about been able to visualize the issues and then to be able to proactively act to correct the same, thus conserve the resource and ensure sustainability.
For example, using smart meters and sensors by the water or electricity distribution companies in a city, one would be able to understand and analyze the losses in the distribution system and then correct it to save and conserve the water or electricity resources. Furthermore, I believe it can also throw up interesting statistics such as - the volume of water demand or the electricity consumption pattern and can also facilitate things like - leak identification, leak prevention, grid performance optimization, prevent outrages, restore outages faster, time-based billing to the consumer and facilitate better planning. Also, the fact that the data is made available in real-time to the consumer, the consumer can now be proactively involved and educated about his / her individual consumption patterns of water and electricity and further incentivized for its conservation.
It all sounds very simple and easy and there is huge potential but the challenge is finding the right business model. As such there could be four business models through companies can engage and work with along with city authorities and utility companies: Build Own Operate (BOO), Build Operate Transfer (BOT), Build Operate Manage (BOM) and Open Business Model (OBM).
Also, it is foreseen that participants to the creation of the "smart Infrastructure" will primarily operate in one of the following roles: - integrators (the end-to-end service provider); or network operators (the M2M and connectivity providers); or product vendors (hardware and asset providers); or managed service providers (third-party providers overseeing management / operation of smart solutions / services).
I believe that the business models and the necessary ecosystem will evolve over a period of time, but are an absolute necessity if India has to achieve its objective of creation of 100 Smart Cities.
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