What Makes a City Smart?

This network is now being expanded and will provide the layer 3 WAN services to over 40 of our operational venues at 100 times the speed of the current network, while realising over one million dollars per year in bankable savings by the end of the current financial year. The first commercial deals have been executed on the fibre network and third party carriers are now delivering super-fast internet services to commercial and residential customers.

We believe that each IoT device can deliver small incremental enhancements. However, each device has a capital cost, which, when combined with network costs and software licencing, can often outweigh the benefits on offer. We have conducted extensive IoT proofs of concept (PoC) and field trials, utilising hundreds of devices across multiple service areas, and have successfully redesigned hardware, software, and network configurations to deliver the business benefits at an appropriate cost. In one field trial, for example, we found that 60 percent of bins in public areas (beaches, parks, and foreshore) are being emptied when less than 30 percent full. At the same time, there were overflows in high profile tourism areas. We are now well advanced in the development of the business case to expand the sensors across thousands of bins in these areas, with an expectation of improved cleanliness in public areas through enhanced route management for vehicles, and early warning of high levels of use, without incurring any additional costs.

To support our future IoT ambitions—we forecast that over 200,000 devices will be utilised by the City within a decade— we have built Australia’s largest and most diverse LoRaWAN network, covering, 98 percent of the city’s geographic area; it is able to support approximately 600,000 devices. The deployment of this network has reduced the cost of transmitting data from devices to the end-user by approximately 75 percent.

We have worked closely with vendors to develop LoRa-compliant smart water meters that can send data from locations that previously were not cost-effectively possible. The success of this work has resulted in us deploying 5,000 meters in the current financial year, with another 170,000 to come, which are expected to help reduce water consumption across the city whilst supporting the realisation of efficiencies in the water network operations. The cloud integration capability is now in production—utilising AWS serverless computing—and is being used across a range of operational areas, including the integration of various systems for issuing and enforcing parking charges.

Our AWS cloud environment is also enabling the development of what we are calling the Economy, Events, and Tourism Insights (EETI) project. This is the first true big data project for the City, and utilises a range of data sets to better understand visitation to the city for holidays and events, and includes beaches, sports stadia, live music, and transport interchanges. This will reform future development of tourism experiences, transport upgrades, events management, and public safety.

The Gold Coast’s approach to becoming a Smart City is founded upon the collection, cost-effective Movement, and comprehensive analysis of data. Through this approach, we believe we can deliver very efficient and customer-focused services, whilst growing our economy and being the place where people want to locate and operate their businesses. We recognise the value of the 12 million visitors to our city, and our approach to being ‘Smart’ is focused on working with partners to identify, analyse, and deliver to them the best possible experiences.