Page 185 - ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services – Executive Summary

2 The Project(s)

2.1 Vision and content

The city administration of Ahmedabad has set out its vision to “Provide efficient, affordable, equitable and
customized governance for citizens of Ahmedabad” and the project conceived under the smart mobility is a
reflection of the vision. The open loop payment system along with automatic fare collection is envisaged to
offer seamless transit facilities such as journey planning and payments across public transit systems (bus
rapid transit system, city buses, and metro which will be launched in 2017) and informal public transit systems
(shared taxis and auto-rickshaws). A seamless experience across the mobility systems along with adequate
planning and scheduling has potential to decongest public transport and reduce the end to end transit times
for citizens – thereby allowing the city to use the existing transit capacities to the maximum extent possible
rather than investing in new urban mobility infrastructure. This approach that the city has taken to use
technology to maximize infrastructure facilities will enable the city to free up capital budget for funding other
social development initiatives.
The features being developed in an integrated fashion across the three initiatives (ITMS, AFCS and CCPS)
include:
• Real time tracking of city buses, in-bus surveillance system, and bus station surveillance system to
monitor the buses and driver behavior
• Data driven bus scheduling and depot management to optimize operation of fleet of buses
• Real time calculation of ‘Estimated Time of Arrival’ based on ambient traffic conditions in the city

• Unified payment mechanism through open loop cards across various modes of formal and informal
public transit to reduce the revenue leakage
• City wide open loop payment card to facilitate digital cashless transactions across services offered
by government and private sector
• Area based connectivity infrastructure to facilitate digital inclusion and connectivity to field devices.
The city has developed these system on bedrock of innovation – by utilizing technologies such as data
analytics (to schedule buses and display estimated time of arrival), internet of things (to gather field level
data), open loop cards (as an alternate mode of payment), and open APIs (to integrate with informal public
transit systems).

2.2 Implementation and perceived outcomes
The implementation of “Smart Mobility” program for the city of Ahmedabad is being done under Government
of India’s “Smart City Mission” whereby the Central Government offers a seed capital of USD 73.5 million to
each of the selected city and State Government matches funding offered by Central Government – thus
allocating an aggregate of USD 147 million to each of the selected city. The program execution is performed
at a city level by a newly created city specific ‘Special Purpose Vehicle’ (SPV) which has equal equity stake of
Local Government (resulting from grants received from Central Government) and State Government. This
independent SPV is headed by a Chief Executive Officer (CEO), who is responsible for overall strategy and day
to day execution of various projects envisaged under “Smart City Mission”. A new institution structure
created at city level has offered urban local bodies the required agility to execute large scale technology
transformation projects. The institution also engages with citizens through an extensive consultation process
over digital and physical channels and projects are prioritized based on aspirations of citizens. For the city of
Ahmedabad, public transport was identified as a major pain area by the citizens and hence the SPV came
forward with the “Smart Mobility” program.
The overall implementation approach was customized for each of the subsystem based on commercial
models, and risk appetite of city administration and the private sector. For instance, the technology
components were developed on an EPC model coupled with operations support for a period of 5 years
whereas the open loop card system was developed on a PPP model with no upfront capital investment from
the city administration.

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