Achieving the smart city also requires a transformation "from within", by reinventing its public services. This is what François Rebsamen, Mayor of Dijon, President of Dijon Métropole, advocates. (1), in a note for theObservatory of Local Experimentation and Innovation where he analyzes OnDijon, a novel approach to the intelligent metropolis. An example of how to develop this initiative throughout the territory, at the service of the general interest.
Ne all dream of the promises made by the smart city: a city that is connected but grounded in reality, flexible but resilient, technological but human. Tomorrow, data management will enable us to better meet the major challenges facing cities: by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, improving urban mobility or revitalizing democracy.
But what if, deep down, the main thing was somewhere else? It seems to me that sometimes the intelligent city misses the essential: the transformation of the city must also be done "from within", by modernizing our administrations and reinventing service to the public. I am convinced that the intelligent city can only be built by transforming its own structure, its skeleton and by becoming more agile.
OnDijon : A novel approach to an intelligent metropolis
In Dijon, we're imagining the territory of the future with the project OnDijon of connected management of public space which foresees the creation, at the end of 2018, of a cockpit to remotely manage the urban facilities of the 24 communes of the metropolis. It will replace the six current control posts (PC Sécurité, PC Police municipale, Centre de supervision urbaine, PC Circulation, Allô mairie and PC Neige).
Centre for the remote control of public services and facilities
Thanks to digital data from public equipment, this cockpit will enable remote management, coordination and maintenance of urban equipment (traffic lights, lighting, video protection, road services, etc.) to facilitate the management of public space.
OnDijon is a groundbreaking initiative, a project for an intelligent metropolis that relies on open data and involves citizens in the creation of new public services (real-time information, connected mobility, lighting adapted to the number of visitors, etc.). This project was born out of the need to rationalise, optimise and mutualise the various urban facilities in order to facilitate the management of public space and to offer more modern and more efficient public services to inhabitants.
The cross-cutting nature of public services in the heart of the metropolis 3.0
It's a real little revolution in the making, since for the first time the city's services will be working transversally. This is probably one of the biggest innovations of this project. But it is almost a paradox since this transformation will be invisible to citizens! Of course, they will see the result by benefiting from renovated public services, but few will imagine the profound change that has taken place.
There was little or no cross-functionality between directorates and services until now. Today, when the various directorates are called upon for interventions, they do not know each other's needs or programs. Tomorrow, thanks to the project, we will be able to set up simpler and more effective collaborations that will simplify the daily lives of officers and services and save them time. These cross-cutting procedures will revolutionize the coordination of services, since agents will be informed in real time. This means, for example, that when a team is on the road, it can be contacted without delay for another intervention or an emergency in the vicinity, whereas previously this information had to pass between several services. Response times will be greatly reduced and citizens will be the primary beneficiaries.
Connected management of public space - Photo credits : Shutterstock
OnDijon, an intelligent metropolis project for :
- facilitate the mobility of the inhabitants, with simple and adapted tools to choose the fastest means of transport to get around, check availability and reserve parking spaces in advance
- improve the quality of service on the road: by allowing citizens to report problems on the road or garbage collection,
- generalise administrative simplification,
– strengthen the security of public space through the coordination of public security actions and the implementation of decision support tools in the event of a crisis.
- to increase the involvement of the inhabitants in the life of the metropolis, with a generalisation of the process of participative democracy.
Digital technology, as we can see here, is only a means, a tool to enable us to make progress, but basically it is first and foremost our internal transformation as a public service that will enable us to improve the efficiency of services. The city does not become intelligent by equipping itself with sensors. The city becomes intelligent because the men and women who live there have new needs and make new use of public space to which we, as a public service, a service "to the public", must adapt.
The intelligent metro: the ground for renewed public-private partnerships
I am one of those who believe that public service is essential, that it knows how to be modern and that it has always been able to evolve to meet the needs of users. I have often heard, however, that the public service lacks efficiency, that it is too expensive and that we should change the model. To shoot the public service with red bullets is to ignore what has made France great.
Would we have world-class railways without the ambitious Freycinet Plan of 1878? Would French medicine be recognised as the best in the world if the State had not set up a quality public service? Would we be one of the leading countries in the telecommunications sector if the public authorities had not made a major contribution? The public authorities have played a decisive role in the development of our country, and public service has often enabled France to become a world benchmark in many areas.
But I'm also aware that public service can't do everything. In the smart city in particular, collaboration between the public and private sectors is essential. In France, we have some of the finest companies in the world. This is a pride and an asset that we must build on.
I believe that the smart city can be the site of a new collaboration between our two worlds.
This is why the realization of our project of connected management of public space has been entrusted to private companies. Therefore, more than two years ago, we launched a call for tenders for the design, construction, operation and maintenance (CREM) of the connected cockpit.
We have chosen a service provision contract rather than a public service delegation to enable each of the players to fulfil their role in a balanced manner: the local authority retains decision-making power over public policy and the private partners put their expertise and innovation capacities at its service. I firmly believe that it is through this collaboration that we can carry out high-quality projects of general interest. The public authorities bring their vision of the future of our fellow citizens, their power of planning and control, and private companies put their capacity for innovation at the service of our ambition.
This project is an example of this. We, the City of Dijon and Dijon Métropole, are financing the investments but using the innovative capacity of our large companies to carry out an ambitious project.
All the major French companies took part in this call for tenders and in the competitive dialogue that we conducted for nearly two years. This time was necessary to allow us, as a community, to precisely define our vision and our needs and for the companies themselves to imagine a technical solution that meets our expectations.
It is a great source of pride because we have managed to mobilise all the French know-how around our project. The construction of the cockpit was entrusted to a consortium made up of the largest companies in the region: Bouygues Énergies & Services and Citelum (an EDF subsidiary), in partnership with Suez and Cap Gemini.
The public-private partnership is in our DNA in Dijon and I think I can say that we know how to make the most of it. But it is also because we know how to innovate contractually to adapt economic models to our public policy ambitions. This is what we did once again with the OnDijon project with a particularly innovative contract.
This is not our first attempt, since we were already the forerunners of public service delegation contracts (PSD) for water management, integrating performance indicators to index the delegatee's remuneration to its operating results.
A little over a year ago, we also innovated by launching the first "mobility" PSD, which integrates both public transport management (tramways, buses, bicycles, etc.) and parking. Where calls for tenders divided public services and uses into "slices", we have demonstrated the relevance of adapting public contracts to the political vision of a territory.
With the OnDijon project, we have once again tried to think outside the box through two main contractual innovations: a global contract that allows us to develop integrated management of public space, bringing together the major urban functions in a single contract and a financing mechanism based on a leverage effect of investments.
Managing major urban functions represents a significant investment cost for local authorities and we thought that if we could issue a call for tenders integrating all the urban functions that are usually managed separately, then we could optimise costs and make significant savings. So the contract we awarded includes both street lighting (for which the contract was expiring) but also the maintenance and operation of urban facilities. This is the first time that a contract has made it possible to manage the major functions of public space in an integrated manner.
The integrated management of the public space and the optimisation of equipment maintenance allow us to generate very significant savings, particularly thanks to the expected energy savings with the installation of 100% LED lighting. The investments to manage this equipment were already budgeted for. So these are not new investments and the savings made will enable us to finance the creation of new services in the intelligent metropolis.
In addition, we wanted to set up a performance contract that will allow us to continuously evaluate the group of companies on objective results criteria (65% of expected energy savings on public lighting, intervention times on public spaces, 99% availability of computer systems, etc.).
Another innovation: on the managerial level, we are going to give priority to close collaboration between the public and private sectors, which will notably result in the creation of "mixed" teams within the connected cockpit that will bring together our agents and employees from private companies. However, we will retain control of operations at all times since the supervision of the cockpit will be ensured by the Municipal Police, under the powers of the mayor.
I sincerely believe that smart cities are synonymous with cooperation: the community can benefit from the innovative capacity of companies while retaining control of its essential missions on the organisation of urban space. I am convinced that the smart city projects that are emerging all over France and the world mark the beginning of a new era for public-private partnerships.
Data: a common good that creates value
The data collected, our "datas", are today at the heart of a new industrial revolution, a new society, just as printing and electricity were in other times. But they require special attention. These data are highly coveted because they have value and they must be protected. For me, as an elected representative, it is at the very heart of our public service mission to ensure that citizens can disseminate this data - their data - without losing control of it. As part of our project, the Dijon local authority is facilitating access to data via open data, while retaining control of this data at all times.
With this project, we wish to contribute to the emergence of a true local governance of data. Dijon Métropole thus remains the sole owner of the data produced or collected within the framework of the project and is committed to ensuring that no personal data can be sold.
At the same time, the local authority intends to involve public and private partners and civil society so that they can contribute to the creation of the intelligent metropolis through various measures: the setting up of a data governance committee, open to stakeholders (associations, companies, citizens, etc.) to define the issues, meet the needs related to the opening up of data and develop the open data policy.
The creation of a consultation platform to co-construct the OnDijon project with the citizens, the realization of a citizen application in which the inhabitants become actors in the management of public space, and the provision of data sets on an open data platform.
Open data will enable the implementation of an open innovation programme, so that the data can be used by and for the actors in the territory. This programme will transform Dijon Métropole into a "Living Lab" whose streets and neighbourhoods will be able to serve as places for experimentation.
I wanted to give everyone the opportunity to participate: citizens, schools, universities, companies, communities, incubators and start-ups are key players in the data valorisation process.
This programme represents the culmination of my vision of an intelligent city: collective intelligence at the service of the general interest.
We therefore intend to pursue a proactive open data policy, but with vigilance and responsibility. We will therefore have an absolute requirement and pay particular attention to data security. Within the framework of the project, we are committed to remain the sole owners of the infrastructures and the data produced or collected within the framework of the project, to guarantee at all times the anonymity of data from public services and, finally, that no personal data can be sold.
Open data is history and it is the future for the development of our businesses, large and small. Public data is a common good, the dissemination of which is in the general interest. Through this project, we are going to contribute, I hope, to defining the contours of local data governance. This is essential for all communities that are and will be confronted with the same questions from their fellow citizens about their personal data and the same pressing demands from businesses about opening up data to boost their activities.
A Replicable Model for Medium-Sized Communities
I believe that one of the great strengths of the intelligent metropolis project for Dijon lies in its "replicability", on data issues, but also on those related to the management of public space. This project is entirely accessible to other communities because it is based on an element common to all: the management of public space. Even if each territory has its own specificities, the management of major urban functions remains similar.
However, the management of urban space is expensive. Today, local authorities lack the investment capacity to carry out ambitious projects. Elected officials are trying to think outside the box to reconcile two imperatives, which are the reasonable management of public finances and the maintenance of an efficient public service.
The contractual model we have developed is based on the simple but effective idea that by generating savings we will be able to invest in new services. The contract we are developing in Dijon is particularly innovative since it develops investments through an innovative savings leverage effect: the savings generated by the project (energy savings on public lighting, optimisation of equipment and services, etc.) will finance the creation of the new services of the intelligent metropolis.
This contractual model is, I'm sure, quite replicable by other communities. In fact, we already have contacts with several of them who are considering developing a project for an intelligent city or metropolis.
I can only be proud when I see that our vision of the intelligent city is recognized in France but also abroad. There is still a lot to be done, but Dijon is already looking to the future and that future is full of promise. We are now pioneers in our field and I hope that our project will inspire other communities.
OnDijon in numbers:
- A €105 million contract, including €53 million in investments
- Renovation of more than 34,000 light points
- 100% LED-65% energy saving at the end of the contract
- 205 geolocated vehicles and 130 equipped with radios
-113 junctions and 180 buses equipped with bus priority
- Renewal of 269 cameras
- Renewal of 26 kiosk sites
- 180 buildings operated in safety and security, including 13 renovated buildings, all of which are connected to the PPC.
- More than 140 km of optical fibre deployed
François Rebsamen, Mayor of Dijon, President of Dijon Métropole, former minister
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