Cascais Operations Centre is an integrated operation that brings together part of the operational services of the municipal universe with five specific objectives:
Register relevant requests, events and occurrences from the various vertical domains occurring in Cascais’ municipality, with particular focus on the management of public space operations;
Anticipate events and occurrences through correlation and predictive methods;
Guarantee an adequate response, as efficient as possible, avoiding errors or duplications in the allocation of resources needed to solve different events;
To provide information that allows faster and sustained decision making;
Evaluate the levels of service provided and the degree of satisfaction.
CMC's strategy is to make Cascais a smart city, implementing a model that is a national and international reference. As a smart city Cascais’ vision associates new technologies with the provision of a public service of excellence, thus enabling the adoption of new models in decision making based on accurate information provided by technologies, particularly through the Internet of Thinks - IoT. Cascais, by implementing its operations centre, centralising occurrences and operational events of the various municipal entities, is able to have an integrated vision and allocate resources efficiently.
C2 integrates teams from different areas and competencies, such as mobility, traffic, solid waste management, territorial intervention, public lighting, air quality control, among others.
Cascais Operations Centre - C2 - is an integrated operation, in adequate technical facilities, which brings together part of the operational services of the municipal area, allowing for integration, correlation and centralized decision making of the different areas of competence, relating to the various municipal entities and communication with third parties that provide essential services to the town, such as communications, energy, among others.
As previously mentioned, C2's ambition is to centralise information and part of the technical services in order to take advantage of the potential information's correlation to enable more effective responses. The aim is to avoid errors or duplications in the allocation of resources needed to resolve different events. By implementing C2, Cascais manages not only to centralize occurrences and operational events of the numerous municipal entities, but also to have an integrated vision and allocate resources efficiently.
The main axes of action are: Integration, Coordination, Correlation and automation.
Regarding the first axis of action - integration - the aim is to centralise the technical operation aspects in a multidisciplinary room and to integrate the operational information from the multiple services of the various organisational units of the municipality's ecosystem of entities.
Regarding coordination (second axis), the Cascais Operations Centre (C2) is intended to coordinate with other entities with responsibilities and influence on the management of the municipality's territory and also to communicate the responsibilities and activities of each player in the resolution process of the different operational occurrences.
The correlation of information from various sources and the predictive management of correlated events, supported by analytical techniques are the basis of the third axis - Correlation.
The last axis is automation, which implies the automation of operational and alerting processes, aiming at minimizing manual supervision activity and maximizing operational savings.
The stakeholders involved: Cascais Municipality, municipal companies and other entities with intervention in the area - mobility, civil protection, municipal police, intervention in the area, environment, energy, among others.
It is easy to imagine the efficiency that such a system can produce, allowing resources to be allocated more effectively. It should be emphasized that this model developed by Cascais can be replicated by other cities.
Since July 2018, a request management system was implemented, based on the centralization of the reception of requests from the municipal universe, integrated in a responsible citizenship strategy, in which citizens can report different types of situations in public spaces, such as damaged pavement, broken traffic lights, urban cleaning, among others.
There has been an upward trend in the number of requests, and it is important to highlight that 85% of annual requests, belongs to the environment area, namely Urban Cleaning, Green Spaces, Playgrounds, Urban Waste Collection, among others. The remaining requests are also related to situations in the public space, namely, streets, urban furniture, street lighting, water and sanitation, among others.
Between January the 1st and 31 December 2020, 91.352 requests were received. The overall annual execution rate is 97% with a monthly average of 7613 requests.
The integrated management system for sustainable mobility in Cascais (MobiCascais), has a platform for technological integration of the numerous transport service operators and the different services and commercialisation modalities that integrate the C2 mobility vertical. This platform ensures the command´s operation and the control processes of the different functionalities, of the prediction and automatic learning systems, and of the communication and information provision systems, in real time, to the users, such as: video surveillance; park access control; alarm systems; parking authorisation management system; Bike Sharing and Bike Parking management system; and the public transport management and operation system.
In 2021, C2 remains with the objective of standardizing procedures, so that the implementation of the integrated management model is completed and fully operational. Thus, C2 intends to centralise occurrences and operational events in the different areas, in real time, in order to allow the municipality to manage its services, automatically and even more efficiently and, in the future, anticipate crisis situations.
Cascais Operations Centre focuses on the so-called catch & dispatch of different occurrences and operational events, whatever their type and nature, allowing an integrated vision to be obtained, in order to allocate the most appropriate resources that ensure the greatest efficiency and response capacity.
The expected impact at environmental and socio-economic level is already visible. Cascais has developed measures aimed to reduce energy consumption, with a strong focus on technology associated with renewable energies, and the rational use of resources. Cascais is one of four Portuguese cities on the list of the 100 most energy-sustainable cities in the world. The MobiCascais mobility project, with strong incentives for the use of public transport, is one of those that contributes most significantly to reducing the carbon footprint in the municipality of Cascais. The decarbonisation of the fleet, greater efficiency in urban cleaning, reduction of water consumption in the irrigation of green spaces and urban cleaning, reduction of energy consumption of operations and defence of the forest against fires are also some of the Municipality's priorities. Cascais uses 73% renewable energy, 52% of which is obtained through wind power and 13% from hydroelectric sources, according to a study released by the "Carbon Disclosure Project" (CDP), a non-profit entity that aims to alert countries, companies and individuals to responsibly manage their environmental impact.
The challenges are related to the implementation of an integrated territory management system that covers the various operational and security aspects, allowing command and control in real time, through the display of indicators and alerts. This system should also anticipate problems and solve them proactively, as well as to coordinate resources in a more efficient and effective way. As we learned, it´s necessary to involve all elements in the process in order to explain, not only the new procedures but also the new vision and mission, so that the change can be made in a serene, peaceful and participatory way.
ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability
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