Petr Suška: Urban data and technology must be there for people, otherwise they lose their meaning
We met Petr Suška, a member of the Board of Directors of the ICT Operator, who was waiting for them in the city society for an area that we used to call smart city due to the lack of better terminology. Data Congress of the Capital City of Prague. The very fact that Prague is organizing its third year is proof that the original ideas of a modern city, whose management and planning is based on meaningful use of data, not only survived the “smart city concept”, but due to the massive development of new technologies are now practically a must if your city doesn’t freeze in development.
“We want to present Prague as a city that really decides on the basis and actively manages,” says Petr Suška. “If enough data is available, we are able to improve the lives of Praguers and respond flexibly to changing circumstances and unforeseen events, such as the covid pandemic.”
How specifically, data in the covid pandemic they help?
The key to success is the digitization of vaccination strategy. Until recently, the vaccination plan was solved almost analogically, simply everything was written on flipcharts and manually recorded to the maximum in tables.
We came up with the idea that it would be nice to have a comprehensive overview of how many people are vaccinated where, where there is a demand, so that we can provide vaccination sites with a sufficient number of vaccination doses. When you have data, you are able to predict demand much better not only by individual days, but also, for example, in relation to the weather.
Moment… How is the demand for weather dependence? One would say that it should depend more on other factors.
Our data suggests that when it’s nice, people are far more likely to arrive. Of course, at the very beginning, when demand far exceeded supply, it didn’t matter if it was raining outside or not. And now demand has risen sharply.
We have found that it is easier and more advantageous for us to build the platform ourselves than to order it from one of the traditional software solutions.
But with data, we can also identify where viruses are spreading in the community, and we may be able to restrict people to places where there is simply too much. When we describe the critical points, we get a very accurate tool in the fight against the covid. This is done, for example, by an anonymized census of people on the streets from stationary cameras.
And if we get rid of covid, how does data help in everyday life?
For example, we have been collecting data from Waze navigation for a long time, we solve travel distances and time for both public transport and taxi services. And thanks to that, we are able to set up a fair way or recommend to Prague residents the optimal way to get to the airport, for example. We are thus avoiding the classic problems with taxi drivers, which Prague has been solving for a long time – we are preparing one standard tariff, as is the case in many western cities.
But the data must be taken somewhere. We know that we will download in the Golemio system, but from where to it as well?
Golemio is an open source platform that shows data not only of the capital, but also of other organizations that provide us, and we publish it on this platform. We are huge that Prague can choose to do such an activity, which is not the case in most Czech cities. That is why we want to do it not only at the level of the city, but also to make the regional and data platforms available to other cities and regions so that they can use it for themselves.
When did Golemio start doing? Was it in the period under Mayor Hřiby, or before? Self-government based on open data is a very pirated topic.
It started to develop in 2017. But Mayor Hřib promoted it a lot, because the data itself is a trend of all progressive metropolises that make up open source software systems. Because you do not want to lock into a system where you have to pay for each license, extension, service …
We have found that it is easier and more advantageous for us to build the platform ourselves than to order it from one of the traditional software solutions. Prague can afford it, because we have the capacity to do it, programmers, data scientists, which many other cities do not have.
In the world ranking of smart cities, ie those that are able to manage their traffic according to data, Prague is higher than Dubai. Which cities are your role models?
As for the Czech Republic, Prague does not have a comparable city. But I could definitely mention very progressive Pilsen, but naturally we want to compare it with cities such as Vienna, Munich or Berlin. And of course we’re looking at Copenhagen, we’re looking at London. With the British capital a special application on the use of data for culture. Prague allocates several hundred crowns for cultural grants, but often does not have enough data to be able to decide which cultural institution really creates fundamental values and builds the local community, and which is just a tourist trap.
We would like to apply the so-called digital exhaust (digital exhaust, note Red.), which is data from Facebook, Yelp and other community networks where you can get qualitative feedback from people. Then you have transaction data, where you are able to track how much each payment card has spent on which terminal. All this is anonymized and, of course, you are able to use geodata to electronically identify a certain locality and recognize which elements most influence the local cultural ecosystem. We just want to understand the data more, and nobody does that much – it does not measure the performance of culture, that is, what is the interest of local people, for example, and how to support community development on that basis.
Culture performance? Is it possible to bring the parameter even closer?
Take an example: the theater will receive a city subsidy, and for every crown the city puts into it, that crown is multiplied eight times. Dan will buy a spectator, a drink, a beer, a ticket somewhere in the area, for example, people outside of Prague will also sleep there. We just need the city to understand. We want to know how he is doing, how he is doing, where he needs to feed, where he needs help. And that requires sophisticated data analysis.
Let’s go to the world comparison for a moment. How is it that Prague is ahead of Dubai? This is often referred to as a shop window technology.
It’s a very misleading sight. You can work with the latest impressive technologies, run after a white rabbit like Alice in Wonderland, and never have to reach a meaningful goal. We in Prague are trying to do the exact opposite. The goal is not technology itself, the goal is a better life for people. Common sense is often more than shiny technology. For example, having enough vaccines in places where they are needed is not very sexy, but it is more useful than impressive technological toys. Therefore, we are not talking about a city based on data, ie data managed city, but about a city based on people, ie human managed city..
Petr Suška
He received a master’s degree in urban planning and economics from the London School of Economics with a further focus on strategy development. He is also a graduate of Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada. He is a member of the Board of Directors of ICT Operator, Director of the Smart City, Innovation and Project Management Department. He has experience in senior management both in the private and public sector with a focus on strategic, economic development and project roll-out, both in the Czech Republic (Institute of Planning and Development in Prague) and abroad (Fraunhofer IAO, Stuttgart ). In addition to English, he speaks German and French.
But it is also necessary to mention that you have to take various rankings with a grain of salt. I am always pleased with the good location of Prague, but as for the ranking, it is a different methodology, other parameters examined, an otherwise large sample of respondents, and therefore also different quality and informative value.
Both the mayor Hřib and Tomáš Jílek from the Technologies of the Capital City of Prague used the example of a supermarket with shiny technologies in terms of a bad smart city concept. It reminds me of a shop with technical toys that you buy, use twice, and then they fit in your dust. So what you are saying is not to buy toys, but useful things …
What is a “smart city” if, I don’t even use the term myself anymore, even though I have it in the title of my position. Smart city is an empty concept. The term smart city was coined by IBM in 2005 as a new sales channel for its technologies and pushed it into the public administration with greater force. To this day, it is said that the most successful export of the European Union – yes, smart cities were very Eurocentric – are smart cities. Everyone used the term for a while, but it was like a pink unicorn. No one has ever seen him.
An apt name would be urban innovation, because you don’t really need any shiny technology to do that. If you know that a lot of water flows down into the Vltava during the rain in Ječná and Žitná, and if you take into account climate change and torrential rain, you measure how much water flows there and build an underground reservoir under Charles Square, where you can catch the water. , and you will use it a few days later, when everything dries like a trunk again. The innovative element in this case is the ability to adapt to climate change.
In terms of climate, Prague has set very bold climate goals by 2030. It wants to reduce by 45 percent emissions by approximately 12 percent energy consumption, increase by 470 percent renewable energy production and not to use any energy from fossil fuels (you will find the complete climate plan here, note Red.). Is there such a thing without efficient collection and use at all?
In addition to climate goals, we must also consider the economic competitiveness of the city. One of the most fundamental problems of large cities, of course not only Prague, is air quality. Cities are disproportionately loaded with car traffic and then it is breathing, for example, by small children who have asthma. Hundreds of people die in Prague from respiratory diseases directly caused by poor air quality. It is therefore also in our interest to deal with the environment. Not only because we are committed to it, but also because we want a better and cleaner city for the people who live and move here.
And if we get there and do we need data for that? Yes and yes. But it will mean a lot of work, explanations and communication, creating new jobs in new sectors, which will undoubtedly be needed for us to ever move to a green economy. We also need to adapt to technological pressure. We already know today that around 2030 it will not be possible to buy a car with an internal combustion engine. And the city must be able to respond. People do not stop moving around the city and infrastructure is important for every means of transport, no matter what they travel on. Which has a multiplier effect and we have to prepare for it.
Thus, the city is moving by leaps and bounds towards transformation and carbon neutrality, but must not lose the economic competitiveness that largely creates a carbon footprint. However, there are plenty of examples of big cities where they do really well, so there is no reason to be skeptical. For example, we are now mapping the potential of Prague roofs and thinking about where solar panels could be placed. This, in turn, opens up an opportunity for us not to depend on coal and nuclear, to improve the Prague energy mix and to have a good feeling that we are shining in the winter, heating with renewable sources and not destroying the planet.
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photo: Zdeněk Strnad, source: ICT operator