Hewlett Packard Enterprise is opening a Center of Excellence with long-term strategic partner PwC in India to apply Internet of Things technology to urban development.
The two are working together to use HPE’s Universal IoT Platform to power future smart cities. The centre in Kolkata will expand device management and machine-to-machine management as well as improving support for Long Range (LoRa). PwC applications and dashboard will be integrated with HPE’s platform to accelerate projects. The two believe IoT can help improve urban environment by reducing air pollution, improving rubbish disposal and speed transport times.
Nigel Upton, General Manager, Universal IoT Platform, at HPE said in a statement: “HPE and PwC are working together to offer enhanced services, greater security and improved civic engagement to municipalities around the world. By combining HPE technology solutions and services with PwC business strategy, process, people and change capabilities, we are able to help organizations accelerate business and societal transformations, and derive greater value faster from their IoT initiatives and the Center of Excellence in Kolkata is a testament of our joint efforts.”
Initial projects being developed will impact and improve the environment, transportation systems and waste management.
The two companies will work together to install sensors, cameras and digital display boards across the city to collect environmental data. The data collected will be analysed to identify the most polluted areas and times.
The Center of Excellence will use IoT devices to collect traffic data and model traffic conditions to add intelligence to traffic signals based on traffic flow. This data will be integrated with GPS data from the transit management system to provide accurate estimated times of arrival (ETAs) for public buses. Finally they will use sensors in parking spaces to allow real-time tracking of available spaces for drivers.
The third part of the Smart Cities project will improve rubbish collection by putting sensors in bins to tell collectors when they need emptying. This data will feed back an optimised route to bin collection lorries which will only visit bins which need emptying.
Finally a network of IoT devices and cameras across the city will be allow preemptive governance and improve city operations and emergency response times.
HPE and PwC expect to build on lessons learnt from these projects to create tailored solutions for other industry verticals including manufacturing and infrastructure.
