Visakhapatnam, India Smarter Cities Challenge report Contents 1. Executive summary 2 2. Introduction 6 A. The Smarter Cities Challenge 6 B. The challenge 7 3. Context, findings and roadmap 8 A. Context and findings 8 B. Roadmap 8 4. Recommendations 10 Recommendation 1: Enable and empower a world-class community 10 Recommendation 2: Implement a District-wide comprehensive communication system 12 Recommendation 3: Improve transport dispatch and restoration 14 Recommendation 4: Implement instrumented utility grid with redundancy 16 Recommendation 5: Create an Intelligent Integrated Command Centre (I2C2) 19 5. Conclusion 25 6. Appendix 26 A. Acknowledgements 26 B. Team biographies 27 C. Infrastructure 30 D. References 33 Additional information 33 1. Executive summary Introduction Findings and recommendations Visakhapatnam District, also known as Vizag, was one of 16 cities The IBM team held extensive interviews with key stakeholders, selected to receive a Smarter Cities Challenge® grant from IBM in including the District Collector and his management team, the police 2015 as part of the company’s citizenship efforts to build a Smarter department, the District Fire Officer, hospitals, the National Disaster Planet®. For three weeks during August and September 2015, a Resp onse Force (NDRF), the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal team of six IBM experts worked to deliver recommendations on the Corporation (GVMC), the Eastern Power Distribution Company following key challenge identified by the District Collector of Vizag, of Andhra Pradesh Limited (APEPDCL), the navy, port authority, Dr. N. Yuvaraj, his senior leadership team and a range of stakeholders: coastguard, universities, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), private citizens and leaders from local communities. The team also visited rural areas, such as fishing villages and farming communities. Upon consolidating the information, the Smarter Cities Challenge Help Visakhapatnam District prepare team found three consistent themes: for and respond to disasters by improving 1. People — The disaster brought the community together, and infrastructure and technology. they worked with the administration to return to normal as soon as possible. The people felt a sense of pride, community spirit and ownership, which should be enhanced in the future with safety training for greater self-sufficiency. It is important to note Visakhapatnam is in a cyclone- and flood-prone area. In October that, due to the efforts of the District leadership, the Honourable 2014, the city was hit by a cyclone named Hudhud, which had winds Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu, as well as the citizens of up to 250 kmph and caused extensive damage to Visakhapatnam of AP, this severe storm had only minimal loss of life, and recovery and the neighbouring districts of Vizianagaram and Srikakulam in was swift. Andhra Pradesh (AP). Damage was estimated to be Rs 21,908 crore (US$3.4 billion) by the AP government.1 2. Infrastructure — This can be categorised into three areas: a. Communication was crippled during and after the cyclone. The challenge The mobile network was severely affected, and the inability Visakhapatnam faces several challenges in its effort to respond to disseminate information distressed many citizens. Traditional to disasters. The IBM Smarter Cities Challenge team was asked means of communication, such as landlines, ham radio and to address the following issues that surfaced during Hudhud: VHF radios, however, remained stable for most citizens and • Power failure and damage to communication towers resulted organisations, though a comprehensive understanding of who in the command centre, emergency workers, stakeholders and had access to what was not available during the disaster. citizens being without a stable means of information sharing The NDRF functioned by using landlines and sending and real-time updates. people between centres to relay messages in person. • Transportation was a major problem, due to the large number b. Transportation was disrupted by the cyclone, as more than of fallen trees that blocked highways and arterial roads causing 10,000 trees were uprooted within Vizag city limits alone. This major disruption to emergency and restoration services. caused major road blockages, which hindered emergency • The lack of systems for providing real-time updates to the District’s and repair crew access to downed power lines and cell manual command centre slowed relief services and the District’s towers, as well as other complications requiring attention. return to normalcy. Vizag had a District Disaster Management Plan Lack of asset management for emergency vehicles and (DDMP), but a lack of integration, best practices and knowledge tools impacted the ability to respond efficiently. management for crisis mitigation compounded the situation. c. Utilities were heavily affected, with power disruptions for up to three days in the city and up to a month or more in some rural areas. While the water department did not experience significant infrastructure damage, without power they were unable to pump fresh water. A limited number of regional generators provided partial backup power, but their single day of emergency backup fuel proved inadequate. Generators were shipped in from neighbouring regions, and the command centre worked hard to deliver fuel to the critical teams to keep power going for water, hospitals and relief services. Smarter Cities Challenge report 3 3. Systems — Manual and isolated by stakeholder, the systems The IBM team conducted interviews based on the Disaster within the District were not integrated, which made collaboration Management Framework and aligned the findings on four levels with key stakeholders difficult. Information resides on paper and of disaster management: Planning, Preparedness, Response in disconnected systems, such as email and other formats. During and Restoration. Hudhud, the command centre was not technology driven, which limited the level of communication. The lack of integrated systems meant that lessons learned from the disaster response were not retained. Provide disaster Ensure reliable management and communications safety training and infrastructure Planning Automate data from critical sources Complete an environmental audit on tree loss with the goal to replant more sustainable vegetation Determine a central point of command with real-time information Restore power and Restoration Preparedness distribution of water Increase self-sufficiency Response Research data-driven Create a complete view allocation and effective of assets and the ability monitoring of assets and to estimate requirements resources post disaster People Infrastructure Systems 4 Visakhapatnam, India The findings and observations were aligned per the framework, and our approximation of their current state compared to their state as a resilient Smarter City is summarised in the following graphic: Recommendations # Actions As is To be 1 Adopt and promote a culture of self-sufficiency Enable and empower a 2 Improve community spirit world-class community People 3 Establish a formal disaster training program 4 Extend landlines to all key stakeholders and land coverage 5 Maximise resiliency of mobile network Implement a District-wide comprehensive communication Enable and expand usage of ham radios/VHF to system 6 dedicated network 7 Leverage alternative channels for broadcast messaging 8 Intelligent deployment of assets Improve transport dispatch and restoration 9 Improve visibility of blockages Infrastructure 10 Decentralise sources of generation, collection and distribution 11 Strengthen existing utility infrastructure Implement instrumented utility grid with redundancy 12 Develop alternative power sources 13 Define and implement a smart-grid approach 14 Create real-time dashboard Integrate information from across District and relevant 15 stakeholders Create an Intelligent Integrated Command Centre 16 Establish a geospatial operational picture Systems 17 Incorporate trend and decision analytics 18 Create an automated alert system Incomplete Complete Smarter Cities Challenge report 5 Conclusion The recommendations in this report endeavour to help the Highlights District of Visakhapatnam become an intelligent, data-driven and • Leverage technology to make Vizag a model smart city people-centric Smarter City. The short-term recommendations for all of India. will allow the region to see immediate results empowering citizens, • Adopt a stable and reliable communication strategy to initialising an information management roadmap and creating a improve disaster management. more robust communication network, transportation system and • Collect, integrate, share and analyse data across systems. utilities infrastructure. The medium-term recommendations will This is critical to make better decisions and respond help define the requirements for data collection and integration, appropriately in times of emergency. as well as the technology and infrastructure required to enable faster and smarter responses to emergencies. Finally, the long-term recommendations will transform Vizag into a Smarter City that is more efficient, with a resilient infrastructure and a data-driven approach to predict, analyse, report and react to disasters. These long-term recommendations will also improve daily operations. Vizag has a proactive administration that is eager to embrace these best practices and new technology. 2. Introduction A. The Smarter Cities Challenge A Smarter City uses technology to transform its