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The federal government awarded Canterbury-Bankstown Council $1 million funding within the Smart Cities and Suburbs program to tackle problems around waste, with Council matching this funding.
The $2.1 million project will see CBCity tackling challenges around bin contamination, customer interactions, technology systems, saa, rubbish collection and how we maintain and service our City.
Find out more about the Closing the Loop on Waste project.
The Smart Tank program provided a budget of $350,000 for investment in 'Smart City' projects. Projects were selected that met four criteria:
The goal of the Smart Tank program was to create and deliver an internal seed funding or grant program to accelerate the adoption of smart cities thinking and assist in delivering real improvement to our customers.
Twenty-eight teams applied for the program. Through a competitive process, five projects were selected to go ahead.
Find out more about the Smart Tank project.
There are a number of steps we needed to take to prepare for implementation for major projects. These foundation projects, which are now mostly complete or significantly underway, included:
Our Smart Cities Roadmap is divided into three separate aspirations.
In a dynamic and multicultural community like Canterbury-Bankstown, we need to ensure that everyone is informed, engaged and connected. By building a culture of innovation within your local Council, the community and our local economy, Canterbury-Bankstown can move forward, develop smart solutions and reach new heights to solve urban challenges. This approach also helps us create partnerships with like-minded individuals and organisations, which provide an invaluable opportunity to learn, reduce risk and collaborate. Our innovative approach ensures we are working together to achieve our smart outcomes.
Memberships & networks
Information about bin collection days is not readily available to the public.
Create a simple, lightweight web map for residents to search their address and view the waste collection calendar.
Implement an online booking system and engaging with residents via email to gather information and evaluate the program.
Create simple lightweight web map for residents to search their address and view the garbage collection viewer.
New technologies and smart service upgrades provide an opportunity to optimise the infrastructure we offer our community and unlock greater efficiency. Using technology to monitor how our assets are used and proactively deploy maintenance activities allows us to better maintain our places, and provide insights to help us manage our assets' lifecycles. Our goal is to better understand our community and how they interact with our infrastructure (physical or digital) by unlocking the data potential of Council's infrastructure.
Utilise video, laser, and sensor technology to determine the condition of our roads.
Obesity, lowered mobility and a decreasing supply of green space due to a growing population, all pose a threat to activity levels in the community. In addition, there are a number of people in our community from low socio-economic backgrounds, who rely on public open space for activity.
Trial incorporation of augmented reality technology, to enhance use and engagement of open space.
There is a poor understanding of how our behaviour affects energy usage, as there is no centralised system for environmental data across the organisation.
Create a data visualisation platform, so we can track and visualise Council's energy and water performance.
Limited understanding of how public bins are used, which leads to enforcement difficulties. This impacts our ability to plan for the future, based on key trends and understanding of how to improve the efficiency of our maintenance schedule.
Implement solar-powered litter bins that report on fullness levels and also include a compactor to reduce the frequency of collections and improve efficiencies.
Excess noise created as a result of loud and traditional speed bumps.
Install smart speed humps that sit flush with the road surface, only becoming a hump when a vehicle is detected travelling too fast. Once activated, the hump lowers, causing a depression in the road surface and discomfort to the driver and slowing them down.
Limited ability to report and respond to waste issues in a timely manner.
Trial technology in garbage trucks and street sweepers to allow drivers to report issues with bins, street conditions, etc., and monitor activity.
Limited usage of free water stations, and limited data on the usage of water stations in parks and open space.
Install water fountains that provide data on water consumption, and have maintenance triggers, WiFi, digital screens and sensors to track pedestrian traffic movements.
Our current method of collecting waste is unsustainable and doesn't provide the best outcome for the customer or the environment.
Old ways won't open new doors. With technology moving at such a rapid pace, our platforms, plans and procedures need to be flexible enough to grow in the best interests of the community. Council has an obligation not just to develop best practice policy for its organisation, but also to work with its state, federal and international counterparts to progress the development of policy that supports government innovation and digital transformation. We will engage with our community to shape the role that data plays and take meaning from it.
Geographic Information System (GIS) alignment project
Council does not yet have a central GIS to aggregate Smart City data.
Work towards having a cloud-based system, to encompass key aspects of safety, to allow for easier reporting, rather than accessing information from different safety databases, for statistical and faster reporting purposes.
Current response time is slow and opportunities to improve the community through safety and enforcement measures are missed, due to workflow allocation requiring connection to the Council network.
SMS RANGERS is a 'smart' add-on that gives Customer Service Officers the ability to report events to rangers on duty, directly via email, to their mobile phones. This facilitates a quick response to events that require urgent action, which are then documented in our database.
We lose valuable resources and have to pay for their disposal, by not reusing our excess goods.
Look at ways to 'close the loop' via data, policy and process, to reuse materials that would otherwise go to landfill.
Council collects massive amounts of data daily, but fails to use this data to help make meaningful decisions.
Investigate various data collection projects and automation (i.e, asset condition, weeds audit, bin audit, building valuation, Council evacuation centres). Develop a performance dashboard (services and city outcomes).
Congestion is a major problem for our community. Because we don't understand how people are travelling, we are not able to influence their journeys and free up parking spaces, to better meet the needs of those that genuinely need them.
Use data to better understand destinations of drivers using Council car parks.
We're currently relying on information provided by applicants and developers (shadow analysis etc.), which has a high margin for error and can often be inaccurate, causing unnecessary delays.
Develop a 3D model for the Bankstown CBD and major centres. By utilising our own model, we can crosscheck and analyse in a more robust way.
The current modes of delegating workloads for city cleaning are inefficient and take unnecessary processing time. This leads to graffiti remaining visible in public, becoming to clean, enticing further destruction and creating angst for the community.
Develop a mobile app to help city cleaning and graffiti removal teams receive and respond to jobs.
There are high contamination rates in recycling bins across Canterbury-Bankstown. We also have difficulty managing data in the field, which prevents us from providing accurate and timely feedback to our residents and Customer Service Centre.
Utilise the Konect app to manage the Recycle Right program and use data more effectively to review how the program is run.
A current lack of insight and data to understand where real improvements can be made in our Customer Service Centre, prevents the improvement of our service.
Implement Workforce Management Technology within the Customer Service Unit to monitor call trends in real-time.
We currently have more than 20 different types of park and litter bins, which causes stock control challenges at our depots and limited capacity to plan for the future. As we run a reactive service, there are also workflow inefficiencies within the asset life cycle.
Use the Konect app to record the location and type of every bin in the City, in order to make decisions on placement and how service runs can be planned.
Failing roads cause major interruptions to our community. Workflow delegation is currently reactive, resulting in greater disruption when works are required to be carried out.
Collection of road asset defects with sub-metre accuracy, using Trimble devices and Corsnet (a network of permanent Global Navigation Satellite System tracking stations, which improve the accuracy of satellite positioning for users in NSW).
We lack a central and easy-to-access project management system, which helps Council manage capital works programs. With traditional methods, we face the problem of managing a large body of work, large and high-risk budgets, holding multiple stakeholders accountable, tracking progress, identifying gaps and delivering capital works projects in a fast and efficient manner.
Use cloud-based software to manage the updating of multiple projects with progress by many staff for reporting.
