Commute Musings: Unleashing Citizen Power for Smarter Cities
It’s been a few months of work-from-office after a long time operating from home. During the commute to-and-fro from Gurgaon, I get time to think, listen to new content and observe the goings-on in the city. I also marvel at the daily evolving road conditions. Not just the traffic but the very road — its surface, structure, and street furniture, is different every day. A lot of it is owed to rapidly evolving infrastructure; metro lines, flyways and expressways being built to accommodate more daily commuters. There’s also beautification and upkeep for the soon to be held G20 summit. Hedges are being pruned, drains unclogged and new lighting fixtures installed. All of these changes are expected to improve the livability of our city in the years to come.
However, there still seems to be a lack of planning and sequencing of activities. The road surface in long stretches is broken, pruned branches lie next to the central median for days, and heavy equipment and police barricades take up valuable road space during rush hour. Another unresolved problem seems to be a lack of coordination between different agencies resulting in delayed works or the constant re-doing of certain activities such as laying of roads, pavements, drainage, etc to accommodate activities that got missed in sequence. But the citizens carry on, hopeful that their current discomfort would be compensated by a more developed city and ease of living in the future.
I am of a similar view that some discomfort in the present is justified for larger societal good eventually. But then when I am stuck again in traffic, I wonder if there exists a better way to manage the city’s development, keeping the present as well as the future in mind. This does assume that everyone involved is looking to accomplish their task without unnecessarily inconveniencing the citizenry. I’m also entertaining the possibility that citizens’ participation via suggestions, complaints, and general oversight is not anathema to authorities.
There already exist some positive signs, though ad hoc, such as the resolution of grievances aired on social media. It is a classic example of the power of connectivity and network effects. A case of enough disgruntled people discovering and demanding resolution for a specific issue. It’s my contention that this process can be formalized using technology to become a key foundation of universal digital public infrastructure. The proposed system, to begin with, can be a smartphone application, connecting citizens to municipal authorities. A smartphone, apart from connectivity, has one or many cameras, precise satellite-based positioning, and increasing access to artificial intelligence. These can be leveraged to create a dynamic platform for city operations cutting across departments and jurisdictions. It promises to be much more than just a digital townhouse. I envision a scenario where a commuter can post a photo with a timestamp and location of an obstruction, a jogger can report missing streetlights on a dark stretch, or authorities can request user feedback for things that work or projects that need to be prioritized. Artificial Intelligence algorithms would be able to correctly route the complaints, help prioritize based on importance and safety, and coordinate actions by multiple agencies for issue resolution. By removing the inherent friction of engaging with authorities, we might even witness a rekindling of community feeling, a deeper engagement with our cities and progressively citizen-centric development.
I realize that such an idea is hardly original, various private applications such as FixMyStreet, GovWhistle, SeeClickFix and others exist, and are being used globally, including in India. However, we need much more scale and accessibility. In fact, our digital townhouse, like our roads, and flyovers, should be developed and operated by the Government. And it should form an integral part of our Digital India story, as much as Aadhar or UPI. Moreover, it should ideally be a phygital system; connected also to the expanding network of physical IoT devices such as traffic sensors, surveillance cameras, pollution monitors, etc.
While we have the technical knowhow to create such a system today, we remain far from it. To fundamentally change the citizens’ engagement with their city to enhance ‘ease-of-living’ would require many more disgruntled citizens and governmental will. Till then we have to make do with social media, music, and commute musings.
Post Script
Over the last few days, I have been observing a boom lift painting the underside of the metro track on the busy Mehrauli-Gurgaon Road, slowly moving forward every day. I fear that it and us still have a long way to go.
