Elets Smart City Summit

By- Dr. Arun Kumar Manocha

What is a Smart City ?Official Definition: The city has to cover five out of eight parameters: Smart Energy Smart Buildings Smart Mobility Smart Healthcare Smart Infrastructure Smart Technology Smart Governance Smart CitizensThe real definition should be “what smart changes do you want to see in the city” .

In a Smart city challenges must be addressed via

Technology Operational effectiveness Behavioral change

Utilizing..•Integrated, cost effective and holistic city solution spanning verticals•Consumer, business, academic and Government engagement/education/enablement•Financial solutions enabling consumer, business, academic and government participation

•Providing a blueprint for continuous innovation•Providing a sustainable method of incorporating renewable and other resource management•Maximizing values through holistic solutions•Providing a foundation that constituents can balance cost/comfort environment•Providing users new ways to create, conduct and consume their various resources

Key Components of Smart Governance For existence of any smart city it must be governed smartly too. Listed below are some mandatory features to be incorporated in the Governance System to be called ‘Smart’ and behave likewise-

Citizen Citizen Mgt .Mgt .

systemsystem(Property, Citizen (Property, Citizen Complaint, Portal) Complaint, Portal)

Utilities Utilities ManagementManagement((Metered/Non-Metered/Non-metered/Regular/metered/Regular/Non-regular- water, Non-regular- water,

electricity etc.)electricity etc.)

Safety & Safety & Surveillance Surveillance

(Invasion detection, (Invasion detection, alarm, Vehicle, CCTV, alarm, Vehicle, CCTV, Time & Attendance, Time & Attendance, Visitor, Patrol & Fire Visitor, Patrol & Fire Safety)Safety)

Transport & Transport & Traffic Traffic

(Fleet, Passenger info, (Fleet, Passenger info, Traffic, Parking) Traffic, Parking)

Smart CitizensThe possibility of smart city is directory related to how smart are the citizen living in that city. Yes, education too play its part but the challenge is to how to make person smart who is deficient to the latest technology. So, here comes the role of awareness and accessibility by which we can attain our goal.

Internet Of Things (IOT) can play a major role-

•Connect with things •Monitor things•Search the things •Manage things •Control things •Play with things

OverviewIndian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd. has been set up by the Ministry of Railways with the basic purpose of hiving off entire catering and tourism activity of the railways to the new Corporation so as to professionalise and upgrade these services with public-private participation.

Mission- "Enhance customer services and facilitation in railway catering, hospitality, travel and tourism with best industry practices".

Our Services- •Internet Tickets(Railways & Air)•E-Catering•Tourism•Railneer•Food Plaza•Call Center•Retiring Room booking, Food plaza Etc..

IRCTC|Smart CityWe are generally related to Transport Sector but we have already incorporated many thing itself which is making people smarter and can fasten up the pace of the dream called ‘Smart City’.

What we have done?• App’s and Websites- We already have our website & mobile App’s on 4 different platform (Android, iOS, Blackberry & Microsoft) for purpose of booking railways tickets, air tickets & food and also to pay , address complains and enquire as well. So, we are definitely connected with the citizen and we facilitate him/her to utilize the service in efficient way which is hassle free, cheap and quick and also eliminates the dependency factors such as time, location etc.

Likewise, if all the services in a city provided by the govt. or private vendors are having such platform then, it would certainly move one step closer to being called smart city.

What we have done?

• Operations-We are almost 24*7 operational with an impeccable track record of transaction reconciliation. This ensures us the trust of our consumers and we are dedicated enough to pay them back by our services.

Our brand value has increased substantially, the same is been reflected by n number of vendors willing to associate with us on our terms and conditions. We treat consumers welfare as a priority so we have very strict policy for selecting any vendor.

We try to maximise PG success rate and we have great efficiency in transaction reconciliation which result to timely delivery of refund to customers.

Efficient operations and consumer trust is must in order to achieve the goal we are looking at So, the same must be implemented and created without any doubt.

What we have done?

• Paper Less Tickets-We are against waste of paper thus, we regularly inform our customers to not to print tickets instead use the SMS or Virtual Reservation Message(VRM) as tickets which is enough for validation. Thus on an average our initiative save more than 5 lacs paper a day.

Your mobile itself act as a ticket ,as VRM or SMS can be shown on mobile only of validation. We are making citizen smart by implementing concept of IOT as you can control your travel by your mobile now.

A smart city must also adhere principle of efficiently mitigating waste and recycle it and for that the first step is always to reduce waste. So, less paper wastage is always nature friendly.

What we have done?

• Pro-active , Informative and Awareness -We have various set of free and paid service so that customer in order to maximise customer experience. We communicate to customer via mail and SMS when a ticket is booked or cancelled. There is also a facility that you will get SMS is case of status change of your waitlist/RAC after chart preparation.

We have paid SMS services for destination alert so that one can sleep peacefully without any worries and also paid SMS based PNR enquiry services. Apart from this various communication are made with customers in order to promote awareness as we constantly put alerts on website and app’s when any changes or new services are launched by us.

Information and awareness are keys for becoming smart so we must have these keys embedded in the system in order to make a smart city .

What we have done?

• Complaint and Customer Care Dept.-We have provided various channels for addressing the issues faced by consumers, one can call us, mail us, tweet us or SMS us. We are reachable by various means, and had already developed a mechanism by which issue is resolved and escalated accordingly to the concerned departments.

We are having adequate measure to control fraudulent activity done by agents and strict rules and regulations are there to penalize them. We promote consumer first approach as any financial loss due to some technical issue is not bared by customer. Providing better service cannot be attained by providing efficient and quick issue resolution thus, it will be one of the most critical factor in shaping of a better city and leading towards a smarter one..