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Singapore's First Safe City Initiative Concludes with Public Showcase of Innovative Solutions
SINGAPORE, Jun 01, 2014 - (ACN Newswire) - Four consortia from the Safe City Test Bed will showcase their range of solutions at the World Cities Summit 2014, 1-4 Jun 2014 at Marina Bay Sands. The Safe City Test Bed was an innovation platform for government agencies to collaborate with industry consortia to build and test solutions for urban management and safety and security.
Over the last year, the four consortia - (i) Accenture, (ii) AGT International, (iii) Airbus Defence and Space (formerly known as Cassidian) together with NCS andI (iv) NEC Asia Pacific - leveraged the latest technologies in data and video analytics, simulation, modelling and machine learning to develop urban management solutions. These technologies have helped Government agencies improve their operations and reduce resource requirements. Moving forward, the government will continue to harness public-private partnerships as a key strategy in developing a Safety and Security industry with strong innovation capabilities to tap on the high growth potential in the region.
In essence, the Test Bed fused existing data from different government sensors and applied new analytical capabilities to give government agencies an improved and combined operating picture, enhancing situational awareness and decision making. These solutions can also find correlations and emerging trend from the data to ensure effective planning and preparedness against future threats.
For instance, the Test Bed developed a crowd simulation model for indoor environments such as MRT stations. Using real-time crowd counting techniques, this solution, when applied to emergency and evacuation scenarios, can help officers predict crowd behaviour and movement if an incident or crisis occurs. In turn, this will help in planning for evacuation routes and decision making by emergency and rescue teams. The simulation model can also help in crowd control for major events where high volume and density of people is expected.
Another feature developed was video analytics solutions that are capable of detecting abnormal scenarios like traffic congestion, abandoned objects, and rubbish build-up. With a combination of rule-based algorithms and machine-learning, these technologies can allow agencies to distil vast amounts of data to provide meaningful insights and help improve response times.
"Through the Safe City Test Bed, we envision the possibility where analytics can enhance our sense-making and planning such that we can be in a better position to minimise the impact of threats," said Mr Anselm Lopez, Co-Director of the Safety and Security Industry Programme Office (SSIPO) and Director Capability Development and International Partnerships at Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
Many cities around the world such as Mexico City, Madrid and Stockholm have already embarked on similar Safe City initiatives. They have deployed integrated and interoperable security systems across several agencies to optimise the response from detection to action. A market research by Frost & Sullivan and commissioned by EDB estimated the market for safe city solutions in South East Asia to reach 152.5 billion USD by 2020. Through the Test Bed and other initiatives, SSIPO aims to develop the safety and security industry in Singapore to be able to tap on this growth potential. Already, the four consortia have committed to growing business and R&D activities through Centres of Excellence which they have each set up in Singapore.
"I am glad that the Safe City Test Bed has been a good platform for multiple government agencies and industry consortia to collaborate and am impressed with some of the new innovations that can be applicable for Singapore and other global cities. EDB will continue developing platforms for such public-private partnerships that will add value to the growing safety and security industry in Singapore," said Mr Gian Yi-Hsen, Co-Director of the SSIPO, Singapore Economic Development Board.
As the private sector remains at the frontier of innovation, providing a platform for continuous R&D where industry can partner the government to test and validate their solutions in a live operating environment is all the more crucial. The government will also continue to harness such public-private partnerships as a key strategy to provide new capabilities and generate economic benefits for Singapore. It aims to do this by creating a plug-and-play analytics platform where companies can test analytics modules with ready access to operational data. These solutions, if successful, can be eventually adopted by participating government agencies. To realise this vision, SSIPO will be conducting a technical feasibility study toward the end of this year.
Please see "Singapore to Develop and Test New Solutions for Safety and Security" May 23, 2014: www.mha.gov.sg/news_details.aspx?nid=MjgyNg%3D%3D-WVlit5hncaY%3D.
Contact:YU Qinyan
Senior Officer, Marketing and Communication
Singapore Economic Development Board
DID: +65-6832-6427
Email: yu_qinyan@edb.gov.sg
Danny Tan
Corporate Relations Division
Singapore Ministry of Home Affairs
DID: +65-6478-5600
Email: danny_tan@mha.gov.sg
Source: World Cities Summit
Sectors: Water, Science & Research, Environment, ESG
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