Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has unveiled intelligent software that allows cities to derive greater value from costly LED streetlighting by reducing the typical four to five-year payback period to just two to three years, while forming the backbone of its smart city WAN (wide area network).
The new software allows cities to invest in other smart city projects sooner, cuts energy consumption using self-learning algorithms, and improves public safety by responding to real-time changes in traffic, weather, and people movement.
Available from TCS Digital Software & Solutions Group, the Intelligent Urban Exchange (IUX) for Adaptive Streetlight Optimization platform also helps cities to jump start smart city projects in other domains, such as transportation, by using smart streetlight networks and a common data analytics platform.
The cloud-based IUX software capitalizes on ambitious efforts by cities of all sizes to replace power-hungry conventional streetlights that consume 40-50% of a typical city’s energy budget. Designed for both LED and conventional streetlights, it acts like a virtual energy advisor for mayors, city managers and urban planners.
IUX can deliver an additional 15-25% in savings, on top of the 50% energy savings from LED lighting alone, by optimizing streetlight operation using machine learning and predictive analytics on real-time and historic data. It enables individual streetlights to respond to real-time events by automatically adjusting city lighting to suit changes in traffic, people movement, and weather.
For example, streetlight luminosity can be automatically increased to enhance public safety when crowds amass around a traffic accident waiting for first responders. The software can also recommend streetlights be dimmed to save money when bad weather keeps people indoors, increased in response to pedestrian activity, or adjusted to resolve local light pollution complaints. IUX is designed as a springboard for launching other smart city applications, with its Connected Intelligence Platform enabling data from energy, water, transportation, and other domains to be accessed, exchanged and analyzed.
“The global switch to smart street lighting is an open invitation for every city to begin their smart city journey,” said Seeta Hariharan, general manager and group head of TCS Digital Software & Solutions Group. “Like the dawn of the internet, we’re just scratching the surface of what’s possible when cities intelligently connect scores of new urban data sources. Just as we’re seeing in retail, banking and other customer-centric markets, cities will compete on their ability to deliver a superior experience for digitally savvy citizens and visitors.”
