Ciscos new cloud services to enhance revenues

Indian Smart Cities are witnessing a sea change. Initially, the focus was more towards strengthening basic infrastructure, but gradually, it has moved to the use of upgraded technology. But the adoption of technology by Indian municipal corporations has left a lot to be desired. However, a few urban local bodies in India have managed to deploy best-in-class tech interventions, with the help of foreign giants. In this connection, Council’s lead partner Cisco, has recently launched a cloud service for smart cities in India. To begin with, the services will be deployed in Jaipur. The Rajasthan Government has embarked upon an ambitious smart city project in the Pink City that aims to usher in a number of services including public Wi-Fi networks, connected parking, intelligent kiosks and a city-wide smart analytics surveillance network. This service launched by Cisco will help urban officials to take more effective action based on data gathered from city-connected devices. According to Cisco, the newly launched cloud collects and analyses data from third-party sensors, street cameras and other devices. The conclusions from the data gathered and brought into Cisco’s cloud will help city leaders take stronger decisions that will bring down costs, enhance revenues and increase operational efficiency. The service will also help Jaipur Development Authority’s (JDA) under-development mobile application that will inform citizens about available parking spaces. In this scalable, Internet of Things (IoT) project, JDA is equipping parking spaces with sensors that can detect when a car is parked and taken out of a parking space. JDA is applying a higher level of integration to the city, which is a major tourist magnet. In addition, the data gathered is securely shared, breaking down government silos that had previously been a major barrier to helping city leaders take accurate decisions based on data from smart city solutions. This means that workers accessing data can make faster and more efficient decisions. For example, a traffic agency can now use third-party applications and an open API to view the data it collects, as well as data collected from other agencies.