The Development of Smart Secure Cities

On 23 April 2019, the new HSD report ‘Smart Cities and Urban Security’ was released. The report was handed over to Strategy Manager VNG Realisatie Koen Wortmann and programme manager Sensing for the Dutch Police Ido Nap. The report was presented at the HSD Campus during the VNG event ‘Project Increment Planning Smart Society’.

Smart Cities and Urban Security

To explore Smart City applications for current and future urban security issues, the HSD commissioned a signalling report back in December 2018. This research, executed by TNO and Van Aetsveld, addresses contemporary urban security issues such as high-impact crime and subversive crime, while also taking into account future security concerns such as threats due to climate change and evolving cybersecurity risks. To top it off, a checklist with concrete handholds is provided. It includes pointers for collaboration, the procession of data, addressing vulnerabilities and accountability, as well as necessary preconditions for success. Mark Ruijsendaal, Innovation Liaison HSD: “Smart Cities have a yet unleashed potential to innovate in urban security; triple helix cooperation in The Netherlands can make products and services an export product as well”.

HSD Café: Smart Secure Cities

During the HSD Café the signalling report was intensively discussed by the writers of the report and reflected on by The Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG) and the Police. Ido Nap stated: “Learning from the development of a Smart Society requires us to shift our focus from technology to exploring the guidelines by which these technologies serve our society”. “There are many opportunities for technology and data to improve the security of our cities. To realise these opportunities, we have to work in an agile way, innovate together and scale-up the discovered solutions” said Koen Wortmann. The Café concluded with four interactive break-out sessions on the topics of, among other, smart city cross-over solutions and future urban security issues.

The future of Smart Cities

The report and HSD Café is part of the HSD Office programme ‘Smart Secure Resilient Cities’ and come at a time when The Netherlands as a whole is rapidly progressing towards a safer and smarter society. For example, on 21 March 2019 during the conference Nederland Digitaal, over 80 organisations signed a declaration to accelerate innovation, develop standards and scale up initiatives nation-wide. The underlying foundation of this declaration is the collaboration between knowledge institutions, businesses and governments, working together to realise a smarter and more secure world.

The full report, including the checklist for successful implementation of Smart city concepts, is available here (only in Dutch).