Safe city summit in a safe city

February 2017 Integrated Solutions

With the increasing frequency of crime, terrorism and natural disasters, public safety has become a critical issue for governments worldwide. Protecting citizens’ lives and properties means building safe cities that are able to withstand external shocks.

Using new ICT solutions and services, governments can enable a properly connected safe city where visualisation and collaboration are embedded into the city’s infrastructure to maximise public safety. This enables the safe city to become a critical component in smart city development.

New ICT, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), mobile broadband, video cloud and big data, are developing rapidly, and are widely used in areas including integrated monitoring, warning plans, emergency communications, and decision-making support. With safe city solutions, comprehensive perception, emergency command visualisation and effective inter-departmental coordination can be realised, creating a three-dimensional, intelligent public safety system for a city.

Huawei hosted its Safe City Africa Summit & Kenya Showcase 2016 in Nairobi, Kenya from October 14-15, 2016, attracting more than 200 global customers, partners, experts, and industry analysts in the public safety sector. Entitled ‘Leading New ICT, Making Cities Safer’, the summit showcased safe city best practices in cities like Nairobi and Mombasa, and gave attendees the latest insights on industry trends.

Nairobi, Kenya.
Nairobi, Kenya.

The government of Kenya has embraced safe city solutions as a national strategy. Huawei teamed up with Safaricom to implement the first phase of Kenya’s Safe City project, covering the most densely populated cities of Nairobi and Mombasa. Following the completion of the project, these cities have improved their local security and according to the Kenya Police annual report, crime rates from 2014 to 2015 decreased by 46% in areas covered by the safe city project.

Kamal Naim, head of ICT, UN-Habitat (United Nations Human Settlement Programme), stated in his keynote speech that a safer city is grounded on three main pillars of prevention: law enforcement and CJS reform, social prevention and urban design. An integrated, multi-sectorial approach to improving the liveability of cities and quality of life for all urban residents, predicated on the confidence that good urban governance, planning and management can improve safety.

According to the latest research from IHS Markit, the market scale of public safety equipment is estimated to increase from US$ 13 billion in 2015 to US$ 20 billion in 2020.

Hong-Eng Koh, Huawei’s global chief public safety expert, said in his keynote speech that while intelligent video surveillance, broadband trunked radio and computer-aided dispatch are crucial, they are not enough to create a safe city. There is a need for policing cloud to link up the silos of different public safety agencies for better information sharing and user experience. With the exponential growth of data from traditional policing records, video surveillance, social networks and the Internet of Things, big data analytics are important too. Together these technologies can help in threats prevention, and if not preventable, early detection for faster response and recovery, with the aim of reducing loss of life and property, and bringing justice and normalcy to society.

Partner cooperation to build an ecosystem

At the summit, Huawei displayed its new smart safe city solution, co-developed by Huawei and its partners. The solution consists of the world’s first visualised and converged command system, the industry’s first 4G professional trunking system, cross-region and cross-agency video cloud, and business-driven safe city ICT infrastructure.

Additionally, Safaricom shared its cooperation with Huawei in the development of the Kenya Safe City project. According to a speech from Shaka Kwach, who is the head of the special projects department at Safaricom, the deployments of Huawei's Safe City solution in Nairobi and Mombasa has drastically improved criminal investigation, cross-agency collaboration, and emergency response efficiency for the national police service. This has resulted in tangible benefits to both the citizens of Kenya, as well as the officers using the solution.

Huawei’s deployment of a new communications network, which links over 1800 surveillance cameras with 195 bureaux and 7600 police officers in Nairobi, is of great strategic importance in terms of national and economic security. The National Police Service Commission of Kenya, for example, has a high-speed private broadband network that partly relies on the company’s propriety wireless enhanced long-term evolution (eLTE) solution.

“The wireless infrastructure links the National Police Service Commission’s command centres with over 1 500 high-definition cameras in downtown Nairobi. Furthermore, it supports more than 200 cameras that are installed at city checkpoints and several wireless devices distributed to officers in the field,” said Frost & Sullivan industry analyst Joanita Roos. “Thus, authorities can conduct panoramic video surveillance of Nairobi’s urban centre, as well as maintain a highly-agile command and dispatch setup that runs on satellite-based global positioning system (GPS) and software-based geographic information system (GIS).”

Additionally, with the video cloud storage platform that Huawei offers, cross-agency video sharing is possible. Through comprehensive security-video linkage, the platform meets multiple service needs, including real-time surveillance, video browsing and evidence collection.

Over and above the video cloud storage platform, Huawei provides sophisticated analytics tools to improve authorities’ ability to identify, classify and match stored video data. The company has also secured its safe city solution against cyber attacks and ensured it is cost-effective.

For more information contact Huawei, +27 (0)11 517 9800, shonisani.mudau@huawei.com, www.huawei.com/enterprise





Share this article:
Share via emailShare via LinkedInPrint this page



Further reading:

A smart start for South African cities
Integrated Solutions IT infrastructure
Cameras and sensors can kick off smart city strategies in cities around South Africa, leading to not only improved security and safety, but also better service delivery in areas like electricity and water provisioning.

Read more...
Innovation and service, 37 years and counting
Technews Publishing Impro Technologies Access Control & Identity Management Integrated Solutions
Innovation, simplicity and trust underpin the nearly 40 years of success of local access control brand, Impro Technologies, which is still run as an independent entity despite being acquired by ASSA ABLOY in 2016.

Read more...
Improving safety and security
Gallagher Education (Industry) Access Control & Identity Management Integrated Solutions
Education facilities have more than enough to deal with when it comes to allocating budget. Security often seems to be the last item on the agenda but is more important than ever.

Read more...
Software is South Africa’s most promising business opportunity
Integrated Solutions IT infrastructure
When we talk about software as a business opportunity, we are not just talking about software or IT as a standalone product; deploying computer and network-related solutions to augment traditional processes represents an evolutionary shift in how the world works.

Read more...
Finding balance in a world of shifting supply chains
Logistics (Industry) Integrated Solutions Products
Retailers and consumer goods manufacturers need precise demand planning now more than ever. With help from the AI-powered SAS Intelligent Planning Cloud, companies can anticipate and address shopper needs and shipping disruptions more effectively.

Read more...
SA banking sector chooses enterprise-grade ID verification
Financial (Industry) Access Control & Identity Management Integrated Solutions
In terms of the secure digital onboarding of customers, South Africa’s major banks have made massive inroads by using remote facial authentication.

Read more...
The state of the biometrics market
neaMetrics Technews Publishing Suprema Hikvision South Africa IDEMIA Access Control & Identity Management Integrated Solutions
Now that the pandemic is over (hopefully), will we see the same confidence in biometrics for access and identification or will the world be reverting to touch-based systems, including cards and fobs (or mobiles).

Read more...
Suprema development tools
Suprema Access Control & Identity Management Integrated Solutions
With integrating systems from different companies a critical part of an effective security solution, Suprema highlights its development tools aimed at making integration with its products simpler.

Read more...
The future of touchless biometrics
Technews Publishing Fulcrum Biometrics Access Control & Identity Management Integrated Solutions
Facial biometrics is the main talking point today, helped along by COVID, but is it the best touchless solution available? Rob Griggs from Fulcrum Biometrics Southern Africa recommends other touchless alternatives.

Read more...
The problem with biometrics
Technews Publishing Editor's Choice Access Control & Identity Management Integrated Solutions
We have come to rely heavily on biometrics for many aspects of access and identity management, especially in identity management where selfie authentication is accepted with confidence. Are we doing it right? Roger Grimes has his own take on the matter.

Read more...