More than 200 municipalities are, with participation by Rosatom, implementing projects to digitalize the urban environment and management.
To date, the total number of cities where projects for digitalizing the urban environment and municipal government are being implemented with the participation of State Corporation Rosatom exceeds 200. In an interview Ksenia Sukhotina, General Director of JSC Rusatom Infrastructure Solutions (RIR, part of Rosatom) told RIA News that, by the end of 2023, the number of settlements where the Smart City platform was deployed reached 117 municipalities throughout Russia. Major projects have also been implemented to digitalize water and heat supply systems, the urban transport complex, city security systems, etc.

As Ksenia Sukhotina noted, in 2023, one important stage in the company’s development was launch of work in the Safe City direction. In particular, a comprehensive intelligent video surveillance system was introduced in one border region. The system has two high-tech components: video cameras themselves and unique software that, using AI, recognizes faces, events and, importantly, non-standard situations indicative of a potential threat, such as inappropriate behaviour of a person or group of people.

There is a significant demand for digitalization systems for enterprises involved in resource supply, energy, housing and communal services. Enterprises have begun to make more active use of domestic software solutions for digitalization: according to RIR’s own analysts, the share of Russian software in procurement by enterprises in the resource supply sector has increased from 60% to 80%. The Digital Resource Supply product is used today in more than ten cities of the Russian Federation in the Belgorod, Voronezh, Lipetsk and other regions; in 2023, the team launched large-scale implementation in Krasnodar.

”The system has already increased the level of crime detection and successful search for missing people. Other regions are also interested in our product, since traditional video surveillance systems, which I would call video broadcast systems, are being replaced by new video analytics products, and this is a general market trend,” said the head of RIR.

”Today we have a whole line of products for the energy sector, housing and communal services. All are built on a single platform. It is possible to integrate with various SCADA packages and accounting systems that provide field data collection. These are useful tools for resource organizations because they provide transparency and save resources. Thanks to them, reliability and efficiency are increased, the number of accidents, including repeated ones, is reduced, and the time required to eliminate them is reduced. It is important that one of the main areas of our work is energy, housing and communal services. And we are developing solutions primarily for ourselves. Once they have been tested within the company, we offer them to external customers – that is, a completely finished product that has been tested under real conditions is introduced to the market,” said Ksenia Sukhotina.

”The transport infrastructure is a key element of a smart city, and we currently have more than 40 ITS products in our portfolio. Digitalization of the transport sector is developing actively. With our help, this year elements of intelligent transport systems were introduced in Yekaterinburg, Belgorod, Lipetsk, Rostov-on-Don, Voronezh and other regions. One separate product is an intelligent parking space, which we have deployed in two dozen regions. The effects are already visible: in a number of cities where an ITS was introduced, the average flow speed in the busiest areas increased by 3–5%, which is a significant result in such a short period.”

The geography of RIR projects for digitalization of city and regional management has expanded significantly, and the first projects have appeared abroad. Modern technologies help improve life in cities and make it more comfortable. Smart city services respond quickly to people’s requests, help involve residents in developing the urban environment, and increase city management and energy efficiency.

Speaking about key events, the General Director of RIR highlighted the significant expansion of competencies and large-scale projects in the field of intelligent transport systems.

“We don’t just carry out digital transformation, we also work a lot with processes using the Rosatom Production System (RPS). The goal of the system is to organize continuous improvement: reducing labour costs and process time. Together with the city or enterprise, we set priorities, with the help of RPS, we optimize processes and consolidate the results in digital services. People see benefits in the changes and there are many more supporters. We strive to be in trend, to be one step ahead of people’s needs. Technologies are developing so quickly that you need to be on your toes all the time, look for and offer new solutions to emerging requests,” said Ksenia Sukhotina.