Latin America. Far from being a luxury for advanced economies, the management of a city by the logic of proactivity reduces collateral costs for municipalities.
According to Paulo Santos, Solutions Manager at Axis Communications, the reactive model of utility management has a cost that is difficult to perceive. When a traffic light changes to green for two minutes without any vehicles passing, while the transverse street is filled with drivers losing three hours per day in traffic in an avoidable traffic jam, there is an invisible financial loss. This economic impact is most evident when analyzing all the services provided to the citizen.
When the forecast is for dry weather and air pollution worsens, causing people to fill health centers for respiratory problems and reduced life prospects, there is a damage that is not taken into account. When a lack of monitoring incentivizes drivers to drive above the allowable speed and motorcycle crashes or falls occur that require emergency care and surgeries, there is a bill that the taxpayer must pay. When a patient with minor injuries is taken by ambulance to an overcrowded critical care facility, there is also inefficient management of public resources. Just as there is a difficult cost to calculate when a city maintains low rates of crimes solved by the difficulty of police investigation. This is the hidden weight of reactive public management.
The proactive management model is the logic behind the Smart City concept. Intelligent incident management involves a quick and automatic detection of an event in a city, and even a detection of signs or trends before something happens. This early detection can be done by cameras and sensors (contamination, radiation, shooting identification, shattering glass, etc.), which generate alerts. The city becomes a living map that generates information from multiple points. In the short term, this information can lead to decision-making in favor of optimizing public resources. In the long term, it helps to develop preventive work that reduces costs.
A good example of cost reduction in the smart city concept is the lighting system. To save energy, street lighting can be adjusted according to the flow of vehicles and pedestrians. Another example is the use of emergency buttons in areas of large circulation of people and vehicles: the citizen presses an illuminated button to call directly to a control center, with which he communicates by audio and video despite the noise in the environment. When the public power understands the real gravity of what is happening, it manages to avoid unnecessary displacements.
A third example is the speed in the capture of stolen vehicles. The victim reports the theft (using, for example, an application) and, on time, the police find out where the stolen vehicle is circulating, thanks to the license plate reading technology. Then, a blockade operation is prepared and the vehicle is intercepted before reaching the destination, avoiding the cost of the police investigation and even the cost of vehicle insurance. In places with high rates of cargo theft, even the value of the delivery of products purchased online can be higher to compensate for losses.
In short, a city is smart when it favors the quality of life. And a public administration oriented to the prevention and optimization of resources manages to do more with less, and even improve its reputation as a tourist destination and private investments.
