The Golden Mile project, for which all the required installations and equipment are in place, is awaiting the official inauguration.
The project, which makes the M.G. Road into a smart street, is a pilot project of the smart city initiative of the State government.
According to the team of the Cisco India Ltd and its partner Quantela, all the components including full-fledged electronic surveillance, smart kiosks at public places, digital classrooms, smart transport, environment watch, smart parking and others have been successfully installed as per the requirement of the civic body. All the equipment can be monitored and operated through the City Digital Platform (CDP) of Cisco which is used in smart cities abroad and a few in India.
“We have completed the project months ago and are only awaiting official inauguration. Some of the technologies like surveillance system are already being used by authorities,” P. Karthik, Technical Manager representing Quantela, told The Hindu .
Of the 100 surveillance cameras, four are smart enough to calculate the density of traffic in a particular stretch of the road and generate traffic frequency reports, live traffic status and others automatically on an hourly basis.
Also, there are 33 access points through which free WiFi will be provided to denizens once the project is officially launched.
Apart from the elements specified under the Golden Mile project, additional components of the VMC like taxation, water distribution, garbage transportation and others have been integrated with the CDP. A six-member team has been working on the project for more than a year.
District Collector J. Lakshmikantham, nodal officer of the project, who recently inspected the project will further observe it through the CDP which will be set up in his office here. The Chief Minister is likely to inaugurate the project, first of its kind in the State.
Another benefit is the smart parking lot integrated with the Smart Vijayawada android application. Also, as part of smart transport, a few bus stops will display live movement of city buses plying on the road. However, only two buses are considered under the project and integration of APSRTC’s live tracking data with the CDP allows display of all movement of all city buses. At the two smart kiosks set up in the PVP Square Mall and the Trendset Mall, people can make online payments of taxes and view information related to the VMC.
Also, the project will be useful for the government authorities in various ways. The dashboard of the CDP presents daily, weekly and other periodical reports on tax collection, water distribution, garbage transportation, building plans, traffic density and others.
This helps officials in decision making on a daily basis. The dashboard also highlights the municipal divisions that are receiving poor services on a map view. Importantly, the 100 cameras, with 30-day footage backup capacity, are already being used by the police in identifying offenders, missing persons etc.
