Darwin council working to correct ‘glitch’ in Smart City program

DARWIN council’s Smart City interface platform, which was designed to create an interactive and more efficient city for visitors, locals and businesses, is not working as it should be

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A GLITCH in Darwin Council’s Smart City program has prevented data collected from dozens of smart poles and more than 100 CCTV cameras from being stored correctly.

The $10m program, launched more than a year ago, was designed to provide city businesses with details of council Wi-Fi use and people movement around the CBD.

Council did not deny inquiries from the NT News regarding a software glitch but confirmed there were issues with the platform.

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A statement said Darwin council was still finalising key aspects of the program, which it finished developing and switched on on May 31 last year.

“City of Darwin is finalising key aspects of its public interface version of the platform to ensure that it meets privacy and security requirements,” the statement said.

“The interface is being tested by CSIRO for data analysis with environmental sensors.”

The Smart City technology was funded by a joint investment by Darwin council and the federal and NT governments; council has also spent tens of thousands more on international trips to develop the software.

The software was designed to collate anonymised data from smartphones across the city through smart towers, as well as environmental data, which would then be passed on to relevant stakeholders and businesses to help them improve their operations.

It was supposed to provide details and data on how many people walked on what footpaths and where they used certain websites and apps in the city. A CCTV component was also developed with operations delegated to NT Police, who would use the 319 CCTV cameras’ footage when necessary to improve safety and security across the CBD.

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It is unsure what component of the software is not working properly and which pieces of data are not being stored.

The software has previously proven successful in showing visitors to the city were social distancing, with less users coming to the city and pedestrian visit time dropping from 74 minutes to 34 minutes a visit.

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