Shaping New Age Urban Systems: A Smart City Maturity Model for Energy, Connectivity & Climate Resilience

Indian cities are struggling to accommodate the accelerated pace of urbanization – resulting in crumbling urban infrastructure and unaffordable options for urban accommodation. Earlier in 2014, was launched as the first ISO standard for smart city indicators. Our analysis (below) shows that the current paradigm for ‘successful cities’ focuses mostly on access to services and infrastructure. However, there is a very limited focus and scope to drive resource optimization over the ‘whole system’ of a city, particularly through the integrated use of physical infrastructure and ICT ot change modes of citizen behaviours and create closed loops of material flows in urban ecosystems

In 2012, the High Powered Expert Committee in India estimated urban investment requirement for the 20-year period from 2012-13 to 2031-32 to be Rs. 39.2 lakh crore (US $638 billion) – to cover both existing urban infrastructure shortages and future development for projected population growth. As HPEC report pointed out, these figures do not take into account the cost of land and hence figures are underestimated. Further, HPEC assessments do not build a ‘smart city concept’ into their estimations.

The total estimate of investment requirements for 100 Smart Cities comes to Rs 7 lakh crore (US$113 billion) over 20 years (with an annual escalation of 10 per cent from 2009-20 to 2014-15). This translates into an annual requirement of Rs 35,000 crore (USD $5.7 billion). It is expected that most of the infrastructure will be taken up either as complete private investment or through PPPs. 

In September 2014, the Indian government suggested a set of benchmarks for Key Parameters for the Smart Cities construct — these span across transport, spatial planning, water supply, sewerage, sanitation, solid waste management, storm water drainage, electricity, telephone connections, WiFi connectivity, healthcare facilities, education, firefighting and others. (Some of these Key Parameters & Benchmarks are listed in at the end of this Briefing Paper for reference.) 

Earlier in 2014, the ISO 37120 (Sustainable development of communities – indicators for city services and quality of life) was launched as part of an integrated suite of standards currently being formulated for sustainable community development. ISO 37120 is important as it is the first ISO standard for smart city indicators. Relevant indicators from ISO 37120 have been mapped to the Key Parameters & Benchmarks proposed by Indian Government Smart City Framework, to enable a comparison (as detailed at the end of this Briefing Paper.)

Our analysis (below) shows that the current paradigm for ‘successful cities’ focuses mostly on access to services and infrastructure. In some cases, the metrics could drive efficiency over the lifetime of physical assets while these assets are being used.

However, there is a very limited focus and scope to drive resource optimization over the ‘whole system’ of a city, particularly through the integrated use of physical infrastructure and ICT in:

• Changing behavior of citizens when interacting with the physical environment
• Closing the loop on resource & energy flows within different parts of a city, as also its exchanges with other cities, peri-urban areas & rural supply bases
• Creating negligible response times to variability events (bio hazards, climate change, security, disasters, crime)
• Measuring, tracking and embedding efficiencies in resource and energy consumption

To shape a common lens on success of these initiatives, we  have developed a Smart Cities Maturity Model (SCMM) to establish the metrics to be applied to a Future City for gauging preparedness against these aspects, as below.

The Smart City Maturity Model was introduced as a Discussion Paper in the Shaping New Age Urban Systems session at the 4th Annual CXO  Summit of the Sustainable Business Leadership Forum.

If you would like to recieve updates on this conversation / report, or engage in industry convenings relating to Shaping New Age Urban Ecosystems, please contact SO Market Access & Insights Team: mait@sustainabilityoutlook.in

 Presented as part of the The 4th Annual CXO  Summit of the Sustainable Business Leadership Forum.