Vertical Market. Vertical Market AUG 2014.

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2 of things Optimizes Smart city Projects Two revolutions are coming together. The first is urbanization, as more and more people around the world are moving to cities. The second is connectivity, with people and devices becoming more connected than ever with promises of growing connectivity as the Internet of Things (IoT) is gaining form. Affected by these two trends, safe and smart city management solutions are destined to grow and incorporate more interconnected systems. n By Israel GoGol, FreelaNCer 7799

3 G rowing connectivity and mobility, not just of people but also of sensors, are changing the way we live and how cities are run. The ever growing amount of information allows for more effective situational management, as well as forecasting of trends and helping city leaders make decisions regarding city management. This shift in the way we live poses major challenges for cities, such as public safety, traffic control, energy management and sustainability, pollution, overuse of existing infrastructure, poverty, and more. Technology can of course help. The use of technology enables quick turnover of data into information. Sensors such as license plate recognition (LPR) cameras quickly turn a picture into information: a vehicle s license plate number. Video cameras provide understandable data about traffic flow and crowd behavior, etc. Once this information is available, further processing can be done; it becomes easier to connect it to other systems, file, sort, and analyze. This combination of systems is what makes a safe city. Josh Phillips, Director of Marketing for Enterprise & Critical Infrastructure at Verint Video Intelligence Solutions at Verint Systems explained further, Safe city, much like a smart city, pursues the best means of safeguarding the public and securing the infrastructure. This involves leveraging a range of technologies not only traditional security-specific systems, such as video surveillance, but other areas, such as weather forecasting and social media. The safe city seeks to implement an approach in which technology is highly leveraged and enables law enforcement and public safety. internet Of things in Safe cities to getting services online or through smartphones. Houses and soon cars will be connected to the Internet and become part of the big Internet of Things (IoT). Hagai Katz, Senior VP of Marketing and Business Development at Magal Systems pointed out how the IoT will affect safe city projects. The future of cities will be similar to what we see today in building management. Katz continued, Today buildings already combine safety (e.g. fire safety), security (e.g. intrusion detection), and building management in one system. In the future, cities should strive to run on a unified platform with all the information stored on a virtual cloud. This platform will be a two-way communication channel between the city and its residents. The city will be able to combine all the relevant information (e.g. events, traffic, trade) and share it with the residents, perhaps even in a facebook like manner creating groups according to people s interests: joggers, parents, fishermen, etc. The recently completed Singapore Safe City Test Bed project gives a glimpse as to how the IoT will influence the future of safe/smart city projects. Launched in 2013, the Safe City Test Bed is an R&D initiative which aims to enable different government agencies to integrate and analyze data collected from existing sensors and network systems by using advanced analytic and information sharing tools. A safe city senses, thinks, and connects, 24/7. A safe city enhances public security Three Phases in Developing the Singapore Safe City Test Bed Project Wong Soon Nam, VP of Communications Engineering at NCS, one of the companies taking part in the Singapore Safe City Test Bed project, sees three phases in developing an integrated approach to urban security. The first phase is surveillancebased projects, in which a surveillance system is deployed around the city in the effort to enhance security via surveillance. This type of deployment relies on video cameras, different sensors, and video analytics. The second phase includes integrating surveillance and response systems. Information from different sources is gathered and stored in a unified data processing center. By adding to this center different command and control and intelligence and communication systems, the city can detect events and manage them. For example, detecting an accident and dispatching an ambulance to the scene. The final and most advanced step is full integration of the disparate systems used by different stakeholders into one unified solution. This will enable the system to identify an event and choose the best possible solution. As connectivity grows and more technological solutions become available, there is also a shift in the end user s expectations. Users are now accustomed 80

4 and welfare by deploying networked security systems across a city to optimize the necessary response from detection to action, said Wong Soon Nam, VP of Communications Engineering at NCS. NCS partnered with Airbus Defense and Space and is one of the four consortia which participated in the Singapore safe city test bed. The other participating consortia were Accenture, AGT International, and NEC Asia Pacific. These companies utilized their experience in integrating information and communication systems and systems integration to leverage the latest technologies in data and video analytics, simulation, modeling, and machine learning to develop urban management solutions. One example the test bed developed is a crowd simulation model for indoor environments such as metro stations. Using real-time crowd counting techniques, this solution can assist officers with emergency and evacuation scenarios by predicting crowd behavior and movement. The simulation model can also help in crowd control for major events where high volume and density of people is expected. Wong detailed further, The maturity of the safe city industry is driven very much by the capability of the city to enable integration of data sharing and analytics through IoT networks, and enable cooperation across multiple agencies. The aim: to provide analysis and information that can be put into action. The maturity of the safe city industry is driven very much by the capability of the city to enable integration of data sharing and analytics through IoT networks, and enable cooperation across multiple agencies. a connected city The underlying concept of these projects is connectivity, combining device systems and services. The general trend towards the growth of connectivity and mobility means that there are now millions of potential sensors and terminals that cities can use. These are city systems such as information kiosks at public transportation stations, tourist attractions, or bicycle rental stations even more significantly residents smartphones equipped with a GPS, a camera, and the ability to record and transmit audio and video. This opens a new channel for crowds to actively participate in city management. Existing apps like Waze allow users to get traffic information based on other drivers experience. In the future, city apps will benefit city management by passively harnessing the wisdom of the crowds for domains like traffic flow and crowd management (e.g. alerting when there is overcrowding in a building or event), as well as actively engaging residents to communicate with the city government directly from their phones. Residents will be able to report hazards and other issues (e.g. a car parked illegally, a broken water pipe, a fallen tree, etc.), use transportation (e.g. rent a bicycle), ask for instructions, and get messages from the city government. Transport for London, the city s mass transit organization, recently took a step in this direction. Busses are now fitted with monitors that track the bus on a live map and inform passengers of the route, nearby landmarks, and travel alerts such as closing of tube stations. From a security perspective, increased connectivity provides an additional source of information, social media. Social media analysis allows security officials to get an early warning for impending events. Wong explained, Through e-sensing, a social media analytic engine that collects useful information and important notifications from social media platforms, security personnel are able to predict or detect the potential trends that are normally not predictable with surveillance data alone, and react accordingly. SegMentatiOn Of information in different government BureauS Josh Phillips, Director, Marketing for Enterprise & Critical Infrastructure at Verint Video Intelligence Solutions, Verint Systems 82 Hagai Katz, Senior VP, Marketing and Business Development, Magal Systems Wong Soon Nam, VP, Communications Engineering, NCS Jamie Wilson, Security Marketing Manager, EMEA, NICE Systems A major challenge facing cities today is the segmentation of information between different stakeholders. The problem is not just that information is stored and managed in separate silos, but also the need to align processes and outcomes

5 according to different parties operating procedures. Adoption of new connected systems will also bring with it a change in the way organizations operate, fostering closer collaboration and cooperation between different agencies. Public and private organizations are digging deeper than they ever have in the past and leveraging information to discover new leads to uncover security and safety issues, added Phillips. Data analysis will play a key role in the success of safe/smart cities. Cities will need to develop a strategy to identify the most relevant information and translate it into standard operating procedures (SOPs) for proper handling and follow-up and to shield operators from irrelevant distractions. A recent example of a project that managed to combine resources from two different parties is NICE Systems recent deployment in Glasgow. Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland, and host of the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Jamie Wilson, Security Marketing Manager for EMEA at NICE Systems, explained that this initiative fuses Community Safety Glasgow s (CSG) video surveillance The Rise of Connected Things 84 operation with Traffcom, the Analysis for the Future of Smart Cities Glasgow City Council team Projection of Future Smart City: Integration of Systems Among Different Sectors which monitors the city s road networks, traffic lights, and traffic cameras. By pooling Government and City Planning Agency and Operations these resources, CSG and Administration Traffcom now have joint access to the city s entire network Buildings of live and recorded video Public safety surveillance footage. PLANNING AND The city is using MANAGEMENT NICE s physical security Energy Social information management INFRASTRUCTURE Programs (PSIM) system to PEOPLE consolidate data from various sources within a Water single operations center. Smarter Care This information is filtered Transportation into pre-defined response plans Education to help operators better manage situations in real time. It also provides improved visibility and control of different Source: IBM, Smarter Cities sensors and better collaboration across relevant security and safety departments. In the future, video content analysis can be response by emergency services. added to the system so that any unusual One of the underlying concepts activity that is detected via the cameras of the IoT is growing connectivity. will trigger an alarm in the command Coupled with machine-to-machine center, prompting investigation and communication, the IoT will enable more automatic analysis of events and responses. The recently established Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC), started by technology industry leaders Atmel, Broadcom, Dell, Intel, Samsung, and Wind River, is meant to focus on improving interoperability and defining the connectivity requirements for the billions of devices that will make up the IoT. The OIC specification will encompass a range of connectivity solutions, utilizing existing and emerging wireless standards and will be designed to be compatible with a variety of operating systems. Such standardization will make future safe/ smart city projects easier to implement, make integration easier, and will increase the choice of commercial-off-the-shelf Source: Frost & Sullivan solutions cities can choose.

6 MOre than just Security In a smart city environment, security systems and sensors are part of a much larger ecosystem. In Singapore, audio and video sensors deployed as part of the safe city test bed are used for situational awareness and detection of potential threats as well as energy management through smart street lighting. According to Katz, The future for security sensors is in being able to supply services beyond security. Security will only be one layer in the city platform and will be integrated to supply the city and its residents more options. Katz further explained, For example, Magal has recently implemented a safe city project in Israel which provides the city more than just a network of security cameras. The fiber optic infrastructure deployed for the cameras also doubles as the city government s communication network and the public announcement system deployed for use during special events is also used to play music in parks and recreational areas. future risks and challenges There are still risks involved with this growing connectivity. Looking down the road, cyber security is the biggest concern for the future. Today s security systems are all digital and as such under threat of cyber intrusion. A hacker could infiltrate the system to sabotage the system or to exploit it for his own needs (e.g. creating an access card remotely to allow access to unauthorized personnel). The huge increase in the number of sensors and end users implied in the concept of the IoT also means an increase in the number of potential breach points into the system. Furthermore, unlike the structured nature of information flow in security networks, the information flow in an IoT environment will be dynamic and varied. This will make monitoring of the data flow and detecting abnormalities a far greater challenge. As safe/smart city projects become more and more common, the industry will play a pivotal role in promoting the IoT and safe/smart city infrastructure. What we lack is evangelists and die hards that will promote the issue within cities, concludes Katz. Currently it is the industry that pushes smart cities forward. 85