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During the Smart Cities India Expo, Geometa’s CEO and Founder, Alexey Dudarev, presented Geometa’s vision for urban management by harnessing geospatial technologies. He highlighted a critical challenge faced by governments globally: while substantial amounts of city-related data are gathered, effectively converting this data into actionable insights for enhanced urban living remains an uphill task. Geometa steps beyond conventional tools like most well-known GIS to address this issue head-on.
In the initial stage of Smart City development, numerous cities have already adopted GIS solutions. However, Geometa envisions a more ambitious objective: the profound integration of technology into the very fabric of urban administration. Achieving this necessitates a transformation in operational procedures for municipal employees. All data, funded by taxpayers’ resources, must be openly shared across diverse governmental systems. This data should be harnessed for routine functions such as permits, property assessments, and the establishment of special zones. Traditional processes should undergo optimization to enable automatic generation of documents from this data, streamlining administrative workflows and minimizing manual interventions.
Equally vital is the swift updating of data whenever a change occurs within the urban landscape. All departments should access a common dataset, augmenting it with industry-specific information without redundant data entries. If certain data elements are absent, a mechanism for locally sourced data incorporation should be instituted, underscoring the primacy of data currency over comprehensive data completeness.
This strategic approach provides city officials with a digital twin of their urban environment. The utilization of high-quality, up-to-date data paves the way for the application of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in tasks like automation, analysis, and informed decision-making.
Geometa stands as a web platform designed to facilitate the creation of integrated city management systems, spanning strategic, tactical, and operational domains. Encompassing areas like sustainable development strategy, urban planning, land cadastre, construction management, transportation, municipal infrastructure, and daily urban tasks such as sanitation, landscaping, and adherence to design codes, Geometa emerges as a holistic solution for efficient and effective urban governance.
The construction of such comprehensive systems revolves around several core principles:
- Creation of comprehensive territory datasets and the facilitation of secure, convenient access for diverse administrative departments.
- Transformation of management processes through digitalization and automation, ensuring the sustained currency of data.
- Harnessing data analysis algorithms and the deployment of intelligent decision support systems to facilitate data-driven governance strategies that optimize performance and outcomes.
The foundational framework for comprehensive projects draws from the wisdom gleaned from over 250 projects spanning various cities and the construction of a multi-tiered state urban planning system. These projects revolve around the automation of territory development management processes, ranging from development planning to the construction and commissioning of infrastructure, housing, and commercial properties.
The pivotal components of these foundational projects include:
- Maintenance of a state real estate object registry (comprising land parcels and structures) and the automation of services for registration and issuance of state ownership certificates, complemented by a mechanism for collecting state fees.
- Storage and accessibility of project documentation, including master plans and detailed planning projects, supported by processes for monitoring zoning and detailed planning endeavors. Developers gain access to this data to inform their business strategies.
- Automation of public services, encompassing activities like land plot allocation, provision of reference data for design, issuance of building permits, object commissioning permits, object usage changes, and address provision.
- A public portal designed for citizens and businesses, granting them insights into the most favorable and socially structured zones within the city.
- Continuous monitoring of data quality and service delivery processes, fostering transparent oversight over departmental activities and the digitization of governance.
- Integration APIs to facilitate interactions with other governmental systems and the structured import of data into the platform, transcending the limitations of legacy databases and software by establishing connections and streamlining analytics. This streamlines data exchange between departments and minimizes erroneous decisions.
Depending on the context within the country, region, or city, these projects might encompass substantial subsystems, including real estate cadastre, construction program management, monitoring of underground network maps, adherence to urban planning and land regulations, and daily maintenance activities through 3D panoramas.
The urgency to improve the quality of territorial management is underscored by the widening gap between escalating demands and the expertise of professionals in the field. This dissonance can result in inter-departmental conflicts, project delays, and service delivery challenges. Geometa offers a unifying solution by acting as a digital twin of the city, serving as both a reference point and a workspace. This consolidated platform accelerates the access and updating of vital information while minimizing human errors. Moreover, it fosters collaboration between departments at the software level, enhancing overall efficiency.
The progressive development of Geometa entails a sophisticated system for data analysis, forecasting, and territory evaluation across diverse domains. These include change analysis to identify illicit constructions and discrepancies between accounting data, analysis of urban development project quality to assess their impact on various aspects of the territory, socio-demographic analysis, transport data evaluation, collaboration-seeking analysis across departments, analysis of public data, and more.
These capabilities are seamlessly integrated within the Geometa product ecosystem, making them available for step-by-step implementation aligned with the client’s evolving needs. These solutions are united by fundamental technological capabilities, including an accessible interface for non-GIS experts, flexible access rights management, configuration tools for dynamic adaptation, a robust mapping engine for real-time data visualization, tools for customized data analysis, and secure operational solutions.
While Geometa’s primary focus is on territorial management within urban, regional, and national contexts, its applicability extends to industries reliant on spatial information for efficient management. This includes real estate management, large-scale construction firms, agriculture, forestry, mining and manufacturing, and transportation enterprises.
