Smart city construction research

(Image source: Panoramic Vision)

Economic Observer reporter Li Huaqing On March 5, Premier Li Keqiang mentioned in his 2018 Government Work Report that in the past five years, my country's urbanization rate has increased from 52.6% to 58.5%, and more than 80 million people who have transferred from agriculture have become urban residents. Regarding the government work proposals for 2018, Premier Li Keqiang pointed out that it is necessary to "improve the quality of new urbanization. This year, another 13 million people will settle in cities and accelerate the urbanization of agricultural transfer population."

The "National New Urbanization Plan (2014~2020)" plans that by 2020, the urbanization rate of my country's permanent population will reach 60%. The benefits of urbanization are obvious: promoting the transformation and upgrading of industrial structure, alleviating the problems of rural agricultural farmers, and promoting coordinated regional development.

However, in the process of urbanization, due to improper planning, infrastructure construction speed that cannot keep up with the level of population agglomeration, and limited urban space, traffic congestion, frequent public safety incidents, insufficient environmental pollution control, and low urban management and operation efficiency " "Urban diseases" are also coming one after another.

The construction of smart cities is a huge and long-lasting project. Qiu Baoxing, counselor of the State Council and former vice minister of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, emphasized at the 2017 International Smart City Summit that the construction of smart cities is not a "turnkey project" and that attention should be paid to the innovation and upgrading of smart cities. During the National Two Sessions in 2018, there were still representatives and committee members paying attention to issues related to smart city construction.

According to incomplete statistics, Sun Pishu, deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman of Inspur Group, suggested building a Digital China during the two sessions this year, "let data travel more and the people run less errands" and open government data; Luo Jiajun, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, suggested further standardizing the disclosure of government data, Promote the construction of smart cities with the help of big data; Chen Fengzhen, a representative of the National People's Congress, submitted a proposal to promote smart parking in cities; Liu Wei, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and chairman of Jiadu Technology, submitted a proposal to apply artificial intelligence to strengthen urban traffic management; Yan Wangjia, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, proposed a proposal It is recommended to strengthen smart city network security evaluation and supervision.

Liu Wei once served as a deputy to the 12th National People's Congress. During his tenure as a deputy to the National People's Congress, he also submitted suggestions on smart city construction. According to Liu Wei’s observation, the popularity of smart city issues during this year’s Two Sessions has cooled down, and much attention has shifted to the application of artificial intelligence technology in smart city construction. “This shows that smart city construction is not only at the policy level, but also more How to implement innovation?" Liu Wei said.

Technology iteration

Jiadu Technology (600728.SH), where Liu Wei works, is a well-known intelligent rail transit service provider in China. Public safety services in the field of smart cities are also one of its main businesses. In addition to companies in vertical fields, since digitalization is the foundation of smart cities, Internet companies have also joined in the construction of the underlying data of smart cities.

Inspur Group has participated in the construction of a unified open government data platform and has assisted in promoting data sharing pilots in 9 provinces and 5 ministries and commissions. Sun Pishu expects to achieve data connectivity in 31 provinces and all national ministries and commissions within this year. At the end of January this year, Tencent signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Jiangsu Provincial Government to promote the integration of the digital economy and industries and accelerate the construction of "Smart Jiangsu". Tencent provides basic resource support and technical support for Jiangsu governments at all levels to build government cloud, industrial cloud, enterprise cloud, etc.; both parties jointly build big data platforms for police and financial supervision; and deepen "Internet + transportation" and "Internet + medical care".

In August 2017, Xi'an City and Ant Financial signed an agreement to jointly promote the construction of "mobile smart cities" and will cooperate in transportation, government affairs, credit and other fields. Alibaba has already implemented its "urban brain" in its base camp of Hangzhou. According to Wang Jian, deputy to the Zhejiang Provincial People's Congress and chairman of the Alibaba Group Technical Committee, in the main urban area of Hangzhou and Xiaoshan District where Alibaba's "City Brain" is trialled, the intersection of 80% allows citizens to drive at only one traffic light. In the future, Alibaba wants to The video recorded by the traffic camera is connected to the traffic light.

Although Baidu has not reported cooperation with the government at the smart city level, in addition to Baidu Maps, which has been widely used by citizens to provide data reference for urban transportation, Robin Li's proposal for this year's two sessions proposed that driverless cars can reduce traffic accidents and improve "Endorsement" in terms of congestion and improving road and vehicle utilization. Lei Jun, chairman of Xiaomi, also suggested speeding up the development of national standards for smart homes during this year’s two sessions.

In Liu Wei's view, the scope of smart city construction is relatively clear in theory. It is hoped to realize the intelligence of government affairs, transportation, medical care, education, community, public security, financial services and other sectors. Smart city construction at different stages touches upon The breadth and depth of the scope of implementation and the degree of intelligence of the means of implementation are different.

“Since the first batch of national smart city pilot lists were announced, various builders have poured in. In the early stages of smart cities, the main focus is on improving government service capabilities and public service capabilities, such as providing government office systems and building buildings. etc. to add some intelligent services and promote fragmentation. The smart city at the current stage is more integrated and integrates physical space and scientific and technological data. The smart city at this stage is in people-benefiting services, government services, transportation services, medical services, There have been great breakthroughs in education services and other fields," Liu Wei told a reporter from the Economic Observer.

Technology is iteratively updated. According to Liu Wei, Jiadu Technology developed the "Urban Traffic Brain" in 2017, which has been implemented in Xuancheng, Anhui Province, and contributed to local traffic management during the 2018 Spring Festival. "During the Spring Festival this year, the G50 Shanghai-Chongqing Expressway (Xuan-Guang Section) in Xuancheng experienced a congestion phenomenon of 'thousands of cars crowded on the ramp, and only a few bypasses were empty'. At that time, about 69% of cars coming from the upstream turned into the ramp. Xuancheng's The 'Urban Traffic Brain' analyzed and found that the cause of congestion is that the navigation software used by car owners all prompts that this route is the 'optimal driving route.' The Xuancheng 'Urban Traffic Brain' conveyed the optimization suggestions for the navigation route planning algorithm to senior officials. Navigation software such as Germany and Baidu were used as a reference to guide car owners not to turn onto the ramp but to go straight, which resolved the congestion." Liu Wei told a reporter from the Economic Observer.

Avoid "new officials ignore old accounts"

As smart city construction has developed to this day, Liu Wei believes that there are three links that need to be kept up with. The first is evaluation, the second is top-level design, and the third is PPP legislation.

"Many cities focus on construction and neglect evaluation. Although they have formulated development plans or special plans, they do not pay attention to performance appraisal, resulting in construction results that do not meet standards or even deviate from expected goals. Some cities have realized the importance of evaluation and have formulated internal policies. However, city self-assessment is highly subjective and lacks professional knowledge and assessment experience, so the objectivity and validity of the assessment results need to be considered," Liu Wei said.

In terms of top-level design, Liu Wei believes that the current government management still tends to be strip-shaped. First, information between governments, departments, regions, and industries has not yet been fully connected. Second, the data is still messy and disorganized. Third, people-oriented needs to be deepened. The services currently implemented are basic rather than sophisticated, let alone customized services. The importance of top-level design has a profound impact on the implementation of applications. Last year, Jiadu Group worked with the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development to implement unified transportation cards in 77 cities, but after submitting the plan, there was no follow-up. Opening up the transportation card may move the "cheese" of some urban transportation operators.

In terms of PPP legislation, Liu Wei believes that in the construction of smart cities, the government's guidance and planning role is very important, but social funds are indispensable. Liu Wei mentioned in previous media interviews that in the current PPP field, central enterprises rely on their monopoly resources to more easily win PPP projects. There is still a lot of room for improvement in the introduction of private funds into PPP projects. "In the process of smart city construction, there are still many phenomena of 'new officials ignoring old accounts'." Liu Wei told reporters.