Ever wondered why no complaints of potholes, flooding in Electronics City in Bengaluru

Scaling up Electronic City Township Authority (ELCITA) experience is tough, but learning from best practices isn’t

In perennial struggle with its inglorious traffic mess, its mountains of daily muck, and soaring water demand, Bengaluru city is always on the lookout for successful urban management models to emulate. The Electronic City Township Authority (ELCITA), with its multiple smart systems might be tough to scale up, but it does offer strategies to tackle many of the big city woes.

Is it rocket science, for instance, to adopt a data-driven approach to solve one of Bengaluru’s most visible trouble-spots, its roads? Pot-hole counting is a routine BBMP exercise, but a taxing one at that. So, why not automate the process like how ELCITA did with a few mobile cameras fitted to a car that drives around once a fortnight or month?

The camera captures road visuals from multiple angles, which are then uploaded to a software driven by artificial intelligence (AI).

The system matches these visuals with images of the same road taken before. Any crack, pot-hole or depression on the road surface is instantly spotted and its precise location geo-tagged.

An assessment team from the Authority goes to the spot, rectifies the fault and uploads a fresh image. The system automatically updates the task as rectified, ensuring real-time monitoring, transparency and accountability. Equipped with men, machines and money, can the Palike adopt this strategy, at least as a pilot?

Still evolving, the AI-based system is now being trained to differentiate between a wet patch and a pothole. This could further boost its efficiency during monsoon, when the interplay of asphalt and stagnant water can get tricky in quick time.

The message is clear: Despite ELCITA’s jurisdictional area of a mere 903 acres, learnings from its methods can help the city get its basics right: Zero potholes, storm water drains cleared and unclogged much before the rains.