Nguyễn Huệ Walking Street in HCM City’s District 1. — VNS File Photo

HCM CITY  — The achievements in the first stage of a project to turn HCM City into a smart city 2020 were listed by its People’s Committee at a conference on Sunday.

Since starting in late 2017, the city authorities have focused on building four centres, considered the four “pillars” of the project, which are a database centre, an operating centre for a smart city, a simulation centre to forecast local socio-economic strategies, and an information security centre.

The city’s common database and open database eco-system is operating at Quang Trung Software Park by integrating the databases of various city agencies.

Dương Anh Đức, director of the city Department of Information and Communications, said data from the system is used by city authorities.

There is also an open database website at https://data.hochiminhcity.gov.vn/, providing information about healthcare centres and professional certificates, he said.

The operating centre for a smart city has helped the city authorities integrate data from monitoring cameras operated by the Department of Transport and authorities in districts Phú Nhuận, Gò Vấp, 1 and 12.

The centre has integrated databases from more than 1,000 cameras which help it identify vehicles and monitor crowds, road traffic and security.

Lê Quốc Cường, deputy director of the city Department of Information and Communications, said this system possesses the advanced capabilities of recognising faces, behaviours and actions; crowd management; tracking vehicles, calculating traffic density and number of vehicles; identifying sounds and explosions or fires.

After an experimental period of two to three months the city will evaluate the system and consider investment procedures so that it can be officially launched within a few months.

The simulation and socio-economic strategy forecasting centre has completed the documents on methodology.

The first stage of the centre is scheduled to start functioning in June 2019, Đức said.

The city has also approved the incorporation of a joint stock company to operate the information safety centre.

At the conference, Nguyễn Thiện Nhân, Secretary of the municipal Party Committee, said the project “to transform HCM City into a smart city in the period 2017-20” is considered its eighth ‘breakthrough’ programme.

After more than a year of implementing the project, there are “positive” early results, he said.

He urged relevant agencies to provide the locations of centres, departments and agencies to the public. — VNS