MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR

Spring 2013 £9Future cities | Transforming cities for the better

Military engagement | Reacting faster with the latest in ITDynamics AX | Realising the ‘Dynamic Government’ approach

Smart and sustainable Spanish ecocity works with Invensys Wonderware Spain to turn its unique vision into a reality

“Barcelona wants to become a people-oriented city, where

technology contributes to achieving a greater welfare, quality of life and boosting

economic progress”Josep Ramon Ferrer, Barcelonatouch

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touchEditor Rebecca Lambert, rebecca.lambert@tudor-rose.co.uk News and online editor Karen MccandlessEditorial team Amber Stokes, Sean Dudley, Lindsay James

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A sustainable futureWelcome to the Spring 2013 issue of Touch. Reading through this issue, you’ll notice

that future cities is a theme we come back to time and again – and for good reason.

Today, according to the UN, around 50 per cent of the world’s population currently lives

in cities. This figure is expected to rise to 75 per cent by 2050. It’s no surprise then that

governments across EMEA and beyond are putting smart city development at the top of

their agendas to not only cope with significantly growing populations, but also to improve

citizen well-being, boost economic activity and ensure long-term sustainability.

In our main feature on page 24, you can find out more about some of the future

city initiatives already being rolled out, as well as the technological innovations from

Microsoft and its partners that are helping cities become smarter and continue to thrive.

In our cover story, we profile a city that is working with Microsoft partner Invensys

Wonderware Spain to realise its eco-friendly vision. From page 18, discover how Ecocity

Valdespartera, the first urban development project in Spain that is governed entirely by

bioclimatic criteria, is taking advantage of real-time operations management software to

run its city operations in a highly efficient manner.

Elsewhere in the magazine, we cover everything from the future of military engagement

through to the latest IT implementation stories across EMEA.

I hope you enjoy the issue.

Per Bendix Olsen

Senior Director, Public Sector Partners

Microsoft EMEA

1

FOREwORDSPRING 2013

COVER STORY

www.onwindows.com

ECOCITY VALDESPARTERA

Located on a former military barracks

site south of the city of Zaragoza in

Aragón, Spain, Ecocity Valdespartera is a

revolutionary social housing project that

is putting the environment and the well

being of its citizens first.

Ecocity Valdespartera is the first urban

development project in Spain to be

governed entirely by bioclimatic criteria in

line with the objectives of environmental

sustainability contained in the Kyoto

Protocol. It is also the largest social housing

project in the country so far. Spread over

243.2 hectares of land are 9,680 homes,

97 per cent of which are dedicated to

social housing, as well as landscaped

public spaces, social, sporting and teaching

facilities, and direct transport links to the

centre of Zaragoza by tram or bus.

Ecocity Valdespartera welcomed its

first residents in 2007, following ten years

of negotiation, planning and building. It

was in 1999 that the project first began to

take shape, when the opportunity arose to

convert existing Spanish army barracks land

into a modern, environmentally-friendly

social housing urban development. In

2001, the City of Zaragoza signed the first

agreement with the Spanish Ministry of

Defence, the land’s proprietor, and through

a partial plan the foundations were laid for

this revolutionary project. The following

year, the public capital company Ecociudad

Valdespartera was established, comprising

the City of Zaragoza, Government of

Aragón and Aragón’s Caja de Ahorros de la

Inmaculada (CAI) savings bank and Ibercaja

bank. The University of Zaragoza would later

also become involved in the project, taking

charge of assessing energy consumption.

In May 2003, the final plans for the urban

development project were approved and work

began on developing the ecocity’s general

systems. The first building permits were then

issued in 2004, containing the environmental

criteria of the urban and architectural layout.

The ambitious nature of the proposal

– creating a city where bioclimatic

management was not a later improvement

alternative but was built into the project’s

development – meant that Valdespartera’s

management team had to consider

integrating and running all of the city’s

facilities with a centralised IT system. This

Spanish ecocity takes advantage of real-time operations management solution from Invensys wonderware Spain to turn its unique vision into a reality. Rebecca Lambert reports

Smartandsustainable

19

system had to efficiently manage everything

from the drinking water supply network,

sewage and rainwater treatment network,

watering systems and electricity and gas

supplies, to street lighting, pneumatic

waste collection and the housing and

environmental control network to ensure

the entire city operates according to the

original plan’s sustainability criteria. In

addition, the system had to be able to

help evaluate, analyse and disseminate

operational information between all

stakeholders involved in the initiative.

Choosing the right technology

Noelia Olona, technical area manager of

Ecocity Valdespartera, and her colleagues

decided that the best IT solution to

meet the new city’s needs was Invensys

Operations Management’s Wonderware

real-time operations management software.

They felt that Wonderware, used in

conjunction with Microsoft Windows

and SQL Server, would best facilitate the

overall management and analysis of an

urban environment in which a multitude

of systems and technologies were involved.

One key thing the Wonderware system

had to do was support the city’s bioclimatic

requirements. These requirements

are summarised in the partial plan as

three main principles. The first is urban

planning, which, in addition to the design

of optimised general services, such as

pneumatic waste collection, is based on

the orientation of buildings for the best

use of light to the placement of screens to

reduce the impact of wind. Secondly, the

architecture was designed to be sustainable,

with flat roofs to accommodate solar panels,

glass galleries to serve as energy collectors

or various finishes on façades to handle

the effects of adverse weather conditions.

Finally, a suitable construction system

promotes the use of materials with a high

level of insulation and renewable features,

such as locally sourced wood to prevent the

high energy costs involved in the import of

exotic species. As Olona explains: “The city

is a full-scale sustainability laboratory.”

In order to define a technical structure

that would comply with the planned

bioclimatic requirements, Invensys

Wonderware Spain designed nine

Ecocity Valdespartera is a revolutionary social housing development with energy-efficient urban design at its core

www.onwindows.com

COVER STORY ECOCITY VALDESPARTERA

management networks to manage all of

Valdespartera’s services and processes.

“There is a drinking water network that

collects its supply from various municipal

deposits; a watering network supplied

by the Imperial Canal, which is separate

from the drinking water supply in order to

prevent contamination of the subsoil with

chlorine; and two sanitation networks,

one for rainwater and another for sewage,

differentiated in order to take advantage of

rainwater for watering purposes,” explains

Olona. “A network was also designed to

monitor energy consumption levels in

homes, monitored by the University of

Zaragoza. This analyses whether the energy

saving targets defined in the plan are being

reached. We also developed a network for

electricity and gas, which included building

its own substation thanks to an agreement

with Endesa; and a network with the weather

station to collect environmental information

and contextualise it with other city systems

such as watering, street lighting network and

pneumatic waste collection network.”

With sustainability a priority, it was

important to define the actual behaviour of

the new urban environment. “It was essential

to verify that the urban and architectural

measures adopted would serve to comply

with the bioclimatic objectives outlined at the

beginning of the project,” explains Olona.

In addition, the city’s commitment to

participate in the Concerto Program, a

European Union initiative designed to

develop energy efficient urban spaces,

required the creation of a knowledge base

regarding the actions taken. “The remote

system with Wonderware would allow us to

gather real-time data for later analysis and

dissemination,” says Olona. Therefore the

main objective was to obtain an integrated

view of the behaviour of all the operations

in the urban service networks, defining

a common data capture infrastructure to

measure and transmit information to a

unified control centre that would monitor

compliance with the environmental criteria.

Integrated services

The integral remote control project was

structured in three stages to coincide with

the phases of the city’s civil engineering

works. The pace of the construction work of

the spaces progressed during the first and

second stages, as buildings were constructed

and conduit infrastructure was introduced

for the fibre optics and electrical installations

of the fieldbus that would manage all

the remote control system devices. In

addition, the contractors began to deploy

the instrumentation equipment, which

would later serve to manage the network –

motorised valves, pressure and light sensors,

flow meters, level systems and pumps.

The communications infrastructure was

consolidated during the third stage, wiring

the conduits already installed and finally,

the Wonderware software was deployed to

connect each of the management systems

with the operations centre.

Once this was all completed, the control

system was structured into three main

21

areas. The first control ‘galaxy’ contains four

programmable logic controllers comprising

the critical services related to the core

operations of the hydraulic system: the

filtering system for the watering supply taken

from the Imperial Canal; the tanks where the

rainwater is collected; the municipal deposits

of drinking water and watering supply; and

the operations around Lake Penélope Cruz,

which is used as a backup system.

A second ‘galaxy’ has been formed by 196

control points receiving information from

the various components of the nine service

networks: water flow rates, consumption,

water supply quality, rainwater control,

consumption and programming of watering

allocations, street lighting consumption,

electricity consumption, waste volume and

classification, meteorological parameters and

so forth. The final area contains 78 ‘cabinets’,

one for each urbanised parcel, which gather

information on electricity, water and gas

consumption provided by the 9,000 digital

meters installed in each of the dwellings. In

total, 21,483 signals are received across 30

kilometres of fibre optic cable structured in

five rings of redundant communication via

fibre optics and wireless signals.

All of these networks are centralised in

a Sustainable Urban Centre (SUC) on two

servers running Wonderware – one contains

the system’s logic and the other stores all

historical information about the ecocity. In

addition to having workstations, operators

of the remote control infrastructure have a

video wall to oversee all operations. Users

can access the system by using specific

passwords according to the process they

want to monitor (water supply, watering,

sewage, street lighting).

The information collected has two main

destinations – it is automatically distributed

to the various technical services responsible

for operations within the city council, and it is

stored to create a database of public interest

knowledge related to the management of

urban energy efficiency. In fact, the University

of Zaragoza is already conducting the first

analysis of how Valdespartera is functioning

and will produce data on the true impact of its

bioclimatic design.

Building a common infrastructure

“An urban planning model such as

Ecocity Valdespartera Zaragoza cannot be

conceived without having a control and

analysis system to manage these integrated

operations,” explains Olona, emphasising

that Wonderware, in addition to providing

this functionality, has also allowed

them to connect all networks without

the need to acquire new technology.

“We have a common infrastructure

today with an integrated view of all the

municipal services and housing.” The

fact that Wonderware is standard is, in

Olona’s opinion, a key benefit for the

projects implemented within the public

administration, where “the existence of a

multitude of specifications, construction

companies and, therefore, systems cannot

be avoided.”

The Invensys solution helps the city efficiently manage its operations in real time

www.onwindows.com

COVER STORY ECOCITY VALDESPARTERA

“One of the key innovations of

Valdespartera from a technology perspective

is the comprehensiveness of the integrated

management system. Many cities have

experimented with ‘smart’ components, but

here we have a highly advanced model,” says

Jordi Rey, managing director of Invensys

Wonderware Spain. “Valdespartera is a

unique example of how the cities of the future

can be designed using data to make intelligent

decisions on a wide range of public services.”

Real-time insight

The ecocity is already taking advantage of

the Wonderware remote control system

in a number of ways and new features will

gradually be added to the network that go

beyond integral monitoring. “Protocols have

been defined for water operations according

to the time of year – spring, winter, autumn,

summer – and the days and hours on

which they have to be activated have been

determined,” says Olona. “If an error occurs,

the same system would alert us in real time to

resolve it, and if the weather conditions vary

in relation to the defined protocol, we can

manually reprogram the system.”

Valdespartera’s ability to run multiple

operations and connect seamlessly with

external systems from a single location

in an efficient manner makes this project

particularly unique. By using Wonderware

technology to monitor daily operational data

and processes, the management team can

cross-check information to ascertain how a

particular action impacts on others and thus

verify compliance with the environmental

requirements specified in the original design

of the city. “The remote control system helps

to resolve two key issues for an intelligent

city such as Valdespartera. It guarantees the

remote control and management of municipal

networks, and helps to assess and analyse the

environmental impact of their operations in

an integrated manner,” says Olona.

Adding new functionality

The management team also appreciates the

flexibility Wonderware gives them to add

functionality as and when they require it.

“We added processes and signals to the

system whenever we wanted without having

to restructure everything again,” Olona says.

“The system not only allows us to check that

all our services are running and functioning

correctly, but it also allows us to open and

close valves, and shut off certain operations

to perform maintenance. This allows us to

achieve considerable cost savings in terms of

managing tasks, which earlier required the

presence of an operator and today can be

handled directly from the control centre.”

Today, the SUC has access to data relating

to meteorology and pollution in Valdespartera

and this can be contextualised with other

points in the city and area, such as general

and specific consumption in the housing

estate, housing behaviour in relation to

energy efficiency and comfort, energy and

environmental data specific to buildings and

their own ancillary, renewable facilities and

information on the supply of drinking water.

This can be compared to statistics from other

areas of the city council, as well as information

on the collection of urban waste and sewage,

among many other issues.

With the project now fully up and running,

a study is currently underway to access the

feasibility of adding new functionality to the

system, such as video monitoring of all the

technical facilities in Valdespartera (tanks

and filter station). The possibility of giving

the city council direct access to information

on household energy consumption for billing

purposes is also being considered.

Based on the success of this project so far,

management at Ecocity Valdespartera have

applied for a patent, which protects both the

project development’s methodology, as well

as its technical and technological structure.

Data is currently being collected and analysed

to identify the energy and cost savings already

being achieved. The aim is to demonstrate

that energy-efficient urban design is not only

feasible, but it can be deployed in a highly

successful and cost-effective manner.

“The remote system with wonderware would allow

us to gather real-time data for later analysis and

dissemination”

Noelia OlonaEcocity Valdespartera

City management can use data to make intelligent decisions about the running of public services

Avantis Eurotherm Foxboro IMServ InFusion SimSci-Esscor Skelta Triconex Wonderware

Traffic that flows. Intelligent buildings that save energy. A public infrastructure that delivers whole new levels of service at lower cost. Systems, assets, people and the environment living in harmony.

You have imagined ArchestrA, the Wonderware technology that lets you manage your infrastructure as you like in an integrated way. Open, scalable, affordable.

Turn imagination into reality with Wonderware. Visit wonderware.com/Infrastructure for more info.

© Copyright 2012. All rights reserved. Invensys, the Invensys logo, Avantis, Eurotherm, Foxboro, IMServ, InFusion, Skelta, SimSci-Esscor, Triconex and Wonderware are trademarks of Invensys plc, its subsidiaries or affiliates. All other brands and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Facility Management • Environment • Power • Smart Cities • Transportation • Waste • Water & Wastewater

www.onwindows.com

FEATURECITIES OF THE FUTURE

“What is the future of cities?” asks David

Burrows, managing director for EMEA

government, Worldwide Public Sector at

Microsoft. With the UN Population Fund

predicting that by 2050, 75 per cent of

the world’s population will live in cities,

this is a good question. And according

to Burrows, if these densely populated

cities are going to thrive, we need to do

something about creating opportunity,

improving education skills and

enhancing economic activity, which will

lead to job and wealth creation, while at

the same time making them attractive

and sustainable places to live and work.

But why are we talking about cities

and not countries? McKinsey Global

Institute has found that cities generate

the vast majority of a country’s GDP

– 64 per cent for Western Europe.

According to Manuel Sanroma, CIO

of Barcelona, they also tend to be

more permanent than the countries

they are based in: “Barcelona has

been around for 2,000 years. I’m not

sure how much longer Spain will

be.” Meanwhile, Joe Dignan, analyst

at Ovum, believes that countries

are more of a 19th or 20th century

concept and the thinking needs to

start at a more local level. Underlining

this city emphasis, US President

Barack Obama has been challenged to

come up with an ambitious proposal

for his second term: to create a new

federal Department of Cities by cities

guru Richard Florida.

But as Ruthbea Yesner Clarke,

research director of smart cities

strategies at IDC, points out, this

doesn’t necessarily have to be a city

in the traditional sense. “It could

be a town, a province, a county, a

metropolitan area or even a university

campus,” says Clarke. “It is anything that

Karen McCandless takes a look at the technology and initiatives that are driving the development of cities of the future

Urbaninnovation

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FEATURECITIES OF THE FUTURE

has a local governing authority and uses

ICT to help achieve its goals.”

The catalyst for creating a city of the

future is often a major event, adds Dignan.

Take the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de

Janiero, the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar

or the 2014 Commonwealth Games in

Glasgow – a city which has just won a £24

million grant from the UK’s Technology

Strategy Board to become Britain’s first

‘future city’. Events like these are helping

to transform cities for the better as it means

there is an immovable date by which

integrated services need to be in place.

And why is the concept of a ‘smart city’

so important? Clarke explains: “Developing

smart cities is key, as we look at a globally

competitive environment with increased

personal mobility. The ultimate goal is to

attract businesses and citizens to a vibrant

economy and provide a better quality of life

in a sustainable way.”

“Cities are starting to compete against each

other to attract talent and are viewing the

concept of cities of the future as a key way to

do that,” says Jordi Rey, managing director

of Invensys Wonderware Spain. “And with

the exodus from the country to the city,

cities need to provide extra employment

opportunities, better infrastructure and a

more pleasant living environment.”

To enable this, cities need to use IT to

deliver better services and work towards a

model that puts the citizen at the centre of

these services. “Technology is often viewed

as a short-term solution to problems,

rather than a longer-term driver of social

and societal change,” says Bjorn Schmitz,

Microsoft partner manager – Applications

& Solutions, QNH Consulting. “However

as the world’s cities struggle from over-

crowding issues, environmental concerns,

travel congestion and economic pressures,

technology has emerged as the front-runner

in the battle to facilitate a sustainable city

for the 21st century.”

“Governments can use technology to

expand social and economic opportunities

and better serve and protect citizens,” says

Burrows. “This could be for economic

development, to help new companies to start

up, or to enable the delivery of core enabling

technology such as wireless networks.”

According to Dignan, the four riders of

the IT apocalypse – cloud, ‘the Internet

of Things’, consumerisation of IT and the

economy have driven the market forward.

“The market has changed from vision to

deployment – it’s moved from how do you

do it to let’s do it,” he says.

And cities around the world rely on

technology from Microsoft and its partners

to help address their needs related to

challenges in six key areas: education,

environmental sustainability, government,

health, power and utilities, and public safety.

As cities compete against each other to attract talent, they need to use IT to deliver better services to their citizens

27

EducationTo enable these future cities, local authorities

must provide education institutions with the

tools to develop students as global citizens.

In turn, educators need to connect everyone

in a learning community to the people,

information, and resources they need and keep

students, educators, and staff connected and

engaged, anytime and anywhere. This could

be through technologies such as Skype or

Polycom’s RealPresence video solutions.

“Enabling long distance learning through

Polycom video conferencing solutions will

increase accessibility to education and training

for citizens,” says Marci Powell, global director

for Education at Polycom. “In addition,

resources such as lectures and course notes can

be made available through video on demand.

Allowing citizens to access these video

resources via libraries or other community

centres can increase participation and a sense

of belonging in the community. For example,

allowing those whose native language isn’t

English to learn via video link will help them

integrate and connect with the culture and

people around them. And with RealPresence,

we can more efficiently deliver programmes

that attract and retain the most talented

students and staff from across the globe.”

Government“Citizens are demanding better, faster, easier

services from city governments, no matter

where they are, when it is or how they are

choosing to communicate,” says Burrows.

“They also want better accountability,

transparency and service delivery. This could

be through the cloud, where with Microsoft

Windows Azure, we can bring services and

information to citizens anytime, anywhere.

Mobile devices, tablets and social networking,

meanwhile, can enable a better connection

between citizens and government and enable

citizens to access services anytime, anywhere

on a device of their choosing.”

Alphonzo Albright, global director of

government solutions at Polycom, adds:

“What I envision is citizen services solutions

centres, which are secure, single-stop

community organisations. They will connect

local governments to citizens through video

kiosks, which can also be placed in libraries or

community centres. Using this technology, city

Viewpoint: Håkan Kårdén, Eurostep Group

Digital data sharing

The issue of resource scarcity has never been as critical as today due to rapidly increasing consumption of energy and material resources in industrialised and developing countries. In order to deal with the problem of resource scarcity and waste generation simultaneously, we need to think of both evolutionary and revolutionary approaches. The EC working paper Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe published in 2011 outlines resource conservation and resource management in the lifecycle perspective as key approaches to deal with this problem.

Eurostep and The Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, have together with a number of other European organisations outlined a project to develop an innovative and practical framework, supported by a lifecycle management software platform for the industrial implementation of closed-loop manufacturing systems.

Eurostep’s software platform Share-A-space is to be used in the project and is ideally suited as it covers the complete life cycle of products and collaboration amongst many partners. The systems engineering capabilities in Share-A-space as well as the capabilities to keep track of configurations in an installed base will be important for the projects.

The concept of cradle to cradle, or circular economy, is described in an easy to digest way at the website of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org

Håkan Kårdén is CEO of Eurostep Group

Håkan Kårdén explains how his company’s Share-A-space solution is enabling energy and resource conservation

!

Viewpoint: Bjorn Schmitz, QNH Consulting

How to create a smart city

A smarter city may mean one that uses data on traffic to ease congestion or one that aims to join up services to provide better information for citizens. In an ever-connected world it makes sense to hook entire cities up to the network. For many, it is about making cities greener and more efficient. For some, it is about how to live longer, how to be happy and how to be healthy by optimising your lifestyle and surroundings.

Moving to the cloud with Microsoft Office 365 as part of an IT modernisation strategy is a good step to creating smarter cities. Office 365 will increase efficiency and help

departments and agencies better serve the needs of citizens without compromising on security or privacy. The OneGov solution – of which QNH is one of the three solution providers – can also help. It makes it possible to deliver digital customer-oriented and innovative services to citizens.

Bjorn Schmitz is Microsoft partner manager – Applications & Solutions, QNH Consulting

Cloud computing can help public sector organisations better serve citizens’ needs, says Bjorn Schmitz

!

www.onwindows.com

FEATURECITIES OF THE FUTURE

authorities can record information and send

it out as a webcast, a video on demand or via

social networking. This could enable citizens

to do their taxes over video, council workers

could carry out case management tasks, and

social workers could correspond with children

and families virtually to lighten the case load.

Citizens can also pick which government

department they need and engage with them

in a video chat.”

This can be facilitated through Polycom’s

RealPresence CloudAXIS Suite, which allows

users to connect with anyone using different

video chat applications, like Skype and

Facebook. According to Albright, this will

create opportunities for citizens to have a say in

the way that services are delivered and improve

community engagement. The government

becomes a platform for citizen participation

rather than simply a service provider.

“As well as improving community

engagement, this is a massive cost savings

initiative,” he says. “With the Texas A&M

Transportation Institute finding that Americans

US$6.1bnThe smart city technology market will grow from US$6.1 billion annually in 2012 to US$20.2 billion in 2020 Source: Pike Research

50%At least 50 per cent of smart city programmes will be initiated at the line-of-business or city-function level

Source: IDC

Saab’s SAFE solution offers enhanced situational awareness capabilities for mission-critical operations

Solution profile: Invensys Wonderware

Managing infrastructure through one platform

Most cities have been formed and evolved over time, with a patchwork of roads, buildings, utility systems and infrastructure. Much like the situation a few decades ago in industry, within these municipalities, there are often islands of automation, as systems have been implemented and run in silos.

Invensys wonderware can help cities to connect all the components – such as mobility and transport systems, waste and recycling, street lighting and environmental sustainability – in an automated manner. It provides efficient management of city services through a real-time integrated platform, as well as remote execution of operations, and offers connectivity to most device standards in a secure way. Connecting these elements enables more intelligent operations and allows systems to work in a

predictive way. For example parks are watered according to the weather and time of year, citizen emergencies are detected by cameras and automatically warn those responsible for incidents, and lighting is automatically controlled based on the time of year. we work with cities like Barcelona, as well as airport operator AENA and the Generalitat de Catalunya railways, to better manage civic infrastructure through one platform.

with this technology, cities can manage their infrastructure in an integrated way, thus enabling them to control budgets, improve environmental sustainability, better manage their resources and ultimately provide a better place for citizens to live.

Jordi Rey is managing director at Invensys Wonderware Spain

Jordi Rey explains how Invensys’ Wonderware technology can enable the cities of the future

!

wasted an average of US$818 each sitting

in traffic in 2011 – amounting to US$121

billion in total – the money saved through the

decrease in travel would be significant.”

HealthAccording to Christina Bivona-Tellez, global

manager of Health and Human Services at Esri,

health is one of the core foundational elements

for a prosperous city. “Businesses need a

healthy workforce to enable economic success

– whether that be the employees themselves

or their family members,” says Bivona-Tellez.

“This isn’t just about traditional healthcare.

It extends to air quality, environmental

sustainability, noise, green space, and social

and emotional wellbeing. With research from

journal PLoS Medicine revealing that a healthy

social life may be as good for your long-term

health as avoiding cigarettes, our challenge

to improve communities is to have more vital

citizens who are engaged in the community.”

Bivona-Tellez also believes that citizens

should be encouraged to take control of

their own well-being, something that Esri’s

geographic information system ArcGIS can

enable. “ArcGIS allows messages to be sent

out to alert citizens of problems, for example

when a water main breaks in your area, or

preventative care like health screenings or

blood tests,” she says. “It could be used to

correlate with social media the incidents

of asthma inhaler use at certain times and

locations.” Esri technology is already in use

in Geoloqi, which sends messages when it

encounters a geo fence to alert citizens of

closures, emergencies, location of services,

clinic openings and medication reminders.

Andrew Graley, healthcare director at

Polycom, agrees that cities need to encourage

citizens to become accountable for their own

health and wellbeing. “Governments are

facing a multitude of problems such as ageing

populations and increasing obesity, and these

are consuming more of the healthcare budget

than ever,” he says. “To alleviate this problem,

citizens need to be able to manage their own

conditions through better access to modern

technology, be it a slate, smartphone or tablet.

This could provide access to discussion

forums, exercise classes and dietary plans.”

Power and utilities Power generation, conservation and the smart

grid are foundations of an energy efficient city.

With energy transmission and distribution

systems often complex to manage, utility

companies are using phasor measurement

units to monitor and manage the health of

their systems. According to Rick Reeder, senior

consultant, Dell Smart Grid & Healthcare

Solutions, utility companies are looking to

Dell’s Smart Grid Data Management solution

to make it easier do this, as well as improve

customer service by minimising and potentially

avoiding outages. Dell introduced the solution

in partnership with Intel, National Instruments

and OSIsoft.

Reeder says that city authorities are

becoming increasingly interested in microgrids,

which are small-scale versions of a centralised

electricity system. They generate, distribute,

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FEATURECITIES OF THE FUTURE

and regulate the flow of electricity to

consumers at a local level. Reeder says: “With

smart microgrids, cities can isolate problems

quickly, for example if something goes wrong

in one neighbourhood then authorities can

pinpoint the location of the outage, identify

what happened and send repair trucks to the

exact place it happened.”

To expand its research into smart grid

technologies, Dell joined the Pecan Street

Advisory Board, a non-profit energy and smart

grid research and development organisation

headquartered at the University of Texas in

Austin. John Pflueger, principal environmental

strategist at Dell, explains: “Pecan Street

works with local utilities to build datasets

around local consumers’ energy use. Pecan

Street believes these datasets and their analysis

provide new insights into ways to improve

and manage energy consumption. In some

cases, these will be simple guidelines for

home or business energy efficiency. In other

cases, analysis will lead to new commercial

opportunities and use models for technologies

such as residential solar installations. As a

member, Dell will provide technology and

IT expertise to Pecan Street to advance its

work in leveraging big data to understand

energy-related issues. Through smart grids

and the better management of energy, we can

support our growing society through economic

development, job creation and reduced impact

on the environment.”

Environmental sustainabilityEnergy consumption and renewable energy also

tie in with another important area of cities of

the future – environmental sustainability. Frank

Holsmuller, regional marketing manager, EMEA

at Esri, explains how the company’s geographic

information system can help build a sustainable

environment. “ArcGIS collects and stores

geographical data that can then be examined

to find relationships, trends and patterns. This

data can be used to improve the sustainability

of cities through better urban planning. It

enables local authorities to make location-based

decisions about where new buildings and

infrastructure such as parks, roads and hospitals

should be built, taking into consideration

environmental issues such as geology,

hydrology and climate. This information can

also be provided to citizens to improve their

experience of living in a particular city. This

concept is taking shape in Seville in Spain

where our ArcGIS Online platform presents a

gallery of interactive maps for all kind of aspects

citizens might be interested in: planning zones,

monuments, bike paths and so on.”

Public safety (and emergency response)As pressure increases on cities to deal with

unexpected security and public safety threats

– Frost & Sullivan named safe cities one

of its top five mega trends for the next ten

years – local authorities increasingly need

to provide citizens with a sense of public

safety. Technology is the tool that can provide

decision makers with the collaboration and

insight they need to make informed decisions

that protect the public.

Martin Slijkhuis, Public Safety and National

Security Industry lead at Microsoft Western

Europe, believes that smartphones will be the

technology at the centre of future public safety

initiatives. “Smartphones will enable better

communication between citizens, governments

and first responders. For example, governments

can provide citizens with alerts in times of

emergency or crisis. An example of this is

AMBER Alert – an alert system in the US that

enables police to immediately warn the country

of an abducted or missing child through

websites, e-mail, text messages, TV and radio.”

Slijkhuis continues: “Equally citizens can

connect with governments and first responders

via social media, reporting suspicious

behaviour in a location-based way. Then when

an incident occurs, enhanced information

should enable the emergency service providers

to respond more quickly and effectively. The

number and severity of accidents and incidents

can be reduced through a better understanding

of how people behave.”

The Swedish County Ambulance Service is

improving its incident response service using a

support system in line with the methods used

Solution profile: Saab Security and Safety Management SAFE

Optimising public safety

with the growth in urbanisation, the demands on infrastructure, communication and interoperability between authorities are increasing. A growing number of people are depending on the assistance of emergency care agencies that have to provide more care with the same resources, adding stress to the staff and putting citizens at risk.

There is a fundamental risk and potentially large consequence to society if these systems malfunction or fail to provide the expected services. From the ambulance to the emergency room, from the scene of a crime via the police car to the prosecutor on call – Saab’s SAFE solution can help by keeping the chain of information and communication intact.

SAFE is a command, control and communication system for mission-critical

operations. The solution is designed to provide superior situational awareness, managing both day-to-day tasks, as well as major incidents. It connects the systems and the resources, making sure all necessary information such as journals or other relevant data is accessible at all times, through the entire workflow. A SAFE-based system enables any type of operations to optimise the use of resources – and time – while increasing the level of security and safety. It allows for all areas of public safety, or other parts of society, to work together seamlessly and in a controlled way. Linda Wallin is product manager and head of communications at Saab Security and Safety Management

Linda Wallin discusses how Saab’s solutions enable emergency services to better respond to incidents and ensure public safety

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locally for pre-hospital command and control,

and its pre-hospital trauma life support system.

The result has been an ongoing collaboration

between Saab Security and Safety Management

and the Research Center of Disaster Medicine

and Traumatology in Linköping, Sweden,

creating a complete emergency care solution.

The challenge for local authorities comes

in integrating all these separate elements and

programmes. Explaining how Microsoft can

help, David Burrows, the company’s managing

director for EMEA government, Worldwide

Public Sector says: “Innovative technology,

tools and solutions from Microsoft and

our partners can help city leaders analyse,

evaluate and tie together the data they need

to see the big picture. This integration can

help authorities make faster, more informed

policy, budget and management decisions.

This results in a more liveable, appealing and

economically viable city, which is attractive to

new citizens and businesses and can meet the

highest expectations for environmental social,

and economic sustainability.”

FEATURECITIES OF THE FUTURE

50%50 per cent of the world’s GDP is produced by cities with a population of 750,000 or over

Source: Frost & Sullivan

70%In 2013, 70 per cent of worldwide spending on smart city projects will be focused on energy, transportation and public safety

Source: IDCCase study: Municipality of Matosinhos (Portugal)

GIS supports Matosinhos’ inspection services

!Illegal occupation of public spaces, unauthorised publicity, illegal building, holes in the streets, broken lamps and malfunctioning traffic lights: these are some of the most common problems that the Municipality of Matosinhos in Portugal can now solve without having to wait for citizens to report the violations.

Mobile Platform Quality 100% is an application based on Esri’s technology, which

enables real-time and in-the-field information gathering and the inspection, maintenance and management of public spaces. A team of employees can now query information about a given area on the spot, record a video or photograph of the event, geo-reference the place of occurrence and send it to specific central services so that the situation is resolved immediately.

An app from Esri is allowing supervisors to solve problems in the field

Case study: Nissan LEAF

Leading the electric vehicle charge

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Urban mobility and transport is vital for the functioning of cities. The Nissan LEAF – which makes use of Microsoft windows Embedded technology for its in car technology – was the first mass produced electric vehicle. with around 54,000 units sold globally since its introduction in December 2010, Nissan LEAF is the world’s best selling electric vehicle.

The new LEAF, which goes on sale in Europe beginning mid 2013, marks an important milestone in Nissan’s global zero-emission leadership. It will soon be joined by pure electric versions of the NV200, to be called e-NV200, in both light commercial van and five-seat combi versions. Development is also underway on a dedicated EV taxi based on the e-NV200. An Infiniti EV is expected in 2015. Production of the new version of the LEAF began in Sunderland, UK on 28 March this year.

As well producing no CO2 at the point of use, the lack of tailpipe emissions extends to zero NOx and particulate emissions. All are detrimental to health and many municipalities are working hard to reduce them to avoid EU fines.

As part of these efforts, Nissan launched

The Big Turn On last year. This was designed to encourage consumers from France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK to consider the benefits of zero-emission driving, and to promote the Nissan LEAF as a safe, environmentally friendly and economical vehicle - with the range between charges being easily sufficient for the vast majority of daily trips.

The Dutch town of Linschoten was named the most ‘switched on’ in Europe, after receiving the greatest number of pledges of support for electric driving of any town or city in Europe during Nissan’s campaign, The Big Turn On. This was a 100-day campaign to demonstrate the benefits of electric vehicles, and to bust the myths that surround them through online influencers, owners and celebrities.

Underlining its commitment to zero-emissions mobility, Nissan readies LEAF for the future