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Design
Design your smart place so you are ready to invest in smart technologies and data solutions. Your design should respond to the needs of your community and place.
Goals of this stage
At the end of this stage, you should be ready to deliver smart solutions in your place.
During this stage you will need to:
- bring together existing data relevant to your problem and outcome statements
- identify the role for smart technologies in gathering additional data to address your problem and outcome statements
- understand available smart solutions
- establish your current and future digital connectivity needs
- identify the digital infrastructure needed to manage your data
- assess costs and benefits
- develop a project management plan
- develop an asset management plan
- establish governance structures for delivery and beyond
- develop a benefits realisation plan to support evaluation of your project after delivery.
Continuing engagement with customers and stakeholders
Engaging customers and stakeholders during the design stage is essential.
It will help you to understand:
- the data that may exist to support your solutions
- how well your planned solutions meet stakeholder needs
- the level of support you have for new approaches and any stakeholder concerns, so these can be addressed.
Refer to involving your community for more guidance.
Designing all elements of a smart place
To successfully deliver a smart place, you need to plan for all elements of a smart place. This includes:
- bringing together data you need to support the problem and outcome statements
- digital connectivity to support your devices
- digital infrastructure and tools to support the movement of data and insights
- devices that can operate on different platforms (interoperable devices)
- a data platform to host and/or share the data being generated
- strong cyber security measures
- a way of using and sharing insights with the community and your organisation.
Smart Places resource: Technical Guidance – Smart Places Design
The Technical Guidance: Smart Places Design (PDF 664.5KB) introduces the role of technology and data in delivering better place outcomes for communities and the core components that provide the foundations for a smart place.
It should be read in conjunction with the relevant standards and legislative requirements.
Designing for digital equity
When you are designing your solutions and smart place, you should include programs and policies that grow digital inclusion. These should address any inequities identified in the discovery phase.
You could consider:
- providing free internet in public places, such as libraries. You should make sure there are places with privacy for people to access online services confidentially.
- working in partnership with the telecommunications sector to ensure strong and reliable mobile and fixed internet coverage.
- programs to help people in your community use digital services.
For more information, read about advancing digital inclusivity.
Data discovery
An important first step of a successful smart places project is confirming the need to invest in smart technologies.
To do this, find and bring together existing data and information to help you address the identified problems. You will have identified problem and outcome statements during the discovery stage.
You should consider:
- available data within your organisation
- open data
- closed public data
- private sector data.
This will help you identify any data gaps and confirm the need to invest in smart technologies to gather new primary data.
Smart Places resource: Data for Places – A practitioner's guide
The Data for Places A practitioner's guide to applying place-based data for effective place management (PDF 967.81KB) will help practitioners (or place owners) use data when managing places. This guide includes information on the data discovery process.
Connecting your place
Fast and reliable digital connectivity is needed in smart places. During the design stage, we recommend you take the following steps:
- understand the digital connectivity you already have access to including fibre, mobile, wi-fi, and Internet of Things (IoT) networks
- establish whether you need to improve the connectivity you have. This may help to support particular smart technologies, new industries and address digital inequities.
- factor in future fibre upgrades by including extra capacity in underground infrastructure like pits and conduit
- include any digital connectivity improvements in your designs.
Smart Places resource: Technical Guidance – Digital Infrastructure Requirements
The Technical Guidance: Digital Infrastructure Requirements (PDF 683.07KB) will help you to deliver new digital connectivity infrastructure to support smart places.
It should be read in conjunction with the relevant standards and legislative requirements.
NSW Digital Connectivity Index
The NSW Digital Connectivity Index is a statewide measure designed to assess digital connectivity experience, providing reliable and consistent data to government agencies, businesses and communities.
Australian Digital Inclusion Index
The Australian Digital Inclusion Index uses survey data to measure digital inclusion across 3 dimensions of Access, Affordability and Digital Ability.
The index provides insights at the local government area level and can help you understand your current baseline.
Australian Government: Telecommunications in New Developments Policy
The telecommunications in new developments policy provides guidance for developers, property buyers, occupants and telecommunications carriers. The latest policy was issued in February 2024, and expands the scope from the provision of fixed voice and broadband services to include mobile coverage.
NSW Connectivity Strategy
NSW Telco Authority has developed the NSW Connectivity Strategy to align and optimise statewide programs and opportunities. It aims to make modern, high-speed digital networks available to all.
Fibre-optic (fixed line)
Fibre-optic cable can support smart technologies that rely upon high-speed, reliable transmission of data. Fibre is generally high bandwidth and low latency, meaning it can transmit large volumes of data very quickly.
Internet of Things (IoT) networks
An IoT network links physical devices and systems to collect, connect and share data, often in real time.
IoT can include:
- infrastructure
- vehicles
- wearable devices
- home appliances
- medical technologies.
They are objects embedded with electronics, software, sensors and actuators. These things then share and exchange data to perform their functions more efficiently and effectively.
A backend interface, also known as an IoT platform, supports the network. It sits beneath a 'processing layer', which takes the form of a cloud or edge server processing all data across the network.
Data can be received, analysed and managed in real time, depending on how the network and applications are set up.
This could range from environmental data to pedestrian movements. The insights help place managers, enterprises, and citizens make better decisions.
Mobile
The 4G mobile network was originally designed to support mobile calls, SMS and video calls. It can transmit other types of data too, but it can't properly support simultaneous connections and uses a large amount of power.
5G mobile networks can upload and download information faster, have very low latency times and can connect multiple devices at the same time. This will better support data transmission in smart places.
Increasingly, 5G networks provide a viable alternative to fibre-based connections. They can support specific industrial use cases like robotics and smart manufacturing.
Devices and enabling infrastructure
The physical assets in a smart place have differing functions. Two key infrastructure types are outlined below.
Sensor devices gather data from the surrounding environment. They detect and record slight changes in their environment so that this data can be captured.
When sensors are connected, they can capture and relay relevant data in real time so it can be processed and analysed.
Actuators work in the opposite way to sensors. They trigger an action or response having been sent a command.
Multi-function poles are connected with fibre and power. They can house devices like:
- 4G/5G small cells
- wi-fi
- connected CCTV
- smart lights
- electric vehicle charging points
- speakers
- power and USB outlets
- signals
- wayfinding and dynamic signage
- help buttons and microphones
- smart controls and sensors
- supporting infrastructure for autonomous vehicles.
If planned well, multi-function poles can reduce street clutter. They can also flexibly support new devices over time.
Because multi-function poles support mobile connectivity, mobile network operators may want to house their equipment on multi-function poles.
Street furniture includes:
- benches
- bus shelters
- picnic tables
- bins.
If you connect street furniture with power and fibre, you will be able to fit them with smart devices like the ones listed above.
To use smart street furniture and smart poles, you will need to make sure you have access to:
- high-quality internet and network access
- appropriate power.
All key open spaces have a dedicated internet or fibre connection point. For wi-fi, IoT and other digital infrastructure to be installed, this connection point needs to terminate in a data cupboard.
Smart Places resource: Deploying multi-function poles
The Technical Guidance: Deploying Multi-Function Poles (PDF 319.1KB) outlines the proposed deployment of multi-function poles in public spaces to support place-based requirements and smart place design while improving amenity and reducing street clutter.
SA TS 5386:2024 Multi-function poles. This standard provides requirements and guidance for the specification and procurement of multi-function poles.
Platforms and systems for managing data
You will need to select a platform(s) to manage data from smart devices.
To do this:
- consider adopting a framework approach. This brings together several best-of-breed solutions, rather than procuring or developing a single end-to-end solution
- ensure your preferred data platform(s) support sharing with other government data platforms
- take an agile approach to the data management framework. This way you can flexibly meet new needs and overcome new challenges when or if they arise.
NSW Spatial Digital Twin
The NSW Spatial Digital Twin provides a platform for data sharing and has a visualisation tool.
NSW Data Analytics Centre
The NSW Data Analytics Centre provides data support services and collaborates with government agencies to tackle complex problems.
NSW Data Governance Toolkit
The Data Governance Toolkit helps realise the full potential of data opportunities. It guides a consistent approach to data governance, supporting best practice.
Data Sharing Checklist for Data Owners
Use Data.NSW's helpful Data Sharing Checklist when sharing data or responding to data requests.
Data storage
There are 2 ways to store data from smart devices:
On-premise solutions
On-premise solutions require data storage software to be installed onsite. This generally provides greater protections for the data than cloud-based solutions.
However, on-premise solutions can cost a lot more than cloud-based solutions and need:
- in-house server hardware
- software licenses
- integration capabilities
- in-house employees to provide support and management.
Cloud-based solutions
Cloud-based solutions are completely hosted by a third-party provider. They are a subscription-based service that can accommodate a wide range of data storage needs. There is no capital outlay needed for these solutions.
Achieving interoperability
Interoperability means different systems and solutions can 'speak' to each other. This means adopting a consistent data and systems architecture across all of your different solutions and with other organisations. This makes it much easier to:
- consolidate and share data
- move between solution providers
- move between different systems.
To achieve interoperability, use consistent data and systems architecture across all your different solutions and with other organisations.
Standards support interoperability, providing a common approach for systems and data.
Data visualisation
Data visualisation can help communicate data to support insights and decision making.
Lots of visualisation tools are available. You should consider:
- choosing a visualisation tool to match the type of data being analysed and the decisions you are trying to inform
- understanding end users and their needs
- designing a prototype of any dashboards and tools and testing them.
In smart places:
- Different stakeholders might need separate visualisations. Leaders in an organisation, operators and the wider community will likely need to know different things, based on the decisions they are making.
- Consider the layout of data and how this can help with insight generation. Data should be displayed so it is aligned horizontally and vertically and on scales that make sense. Make sure data isn't aligned in ways that suggest irrelevant correlations and comparisons.
- Consolidate the data being visualised whenever possible. For example, if 2 different datasets can be represented on the same axis and still have the desired effect, do so.
- Keep things engaging but to the point. Avoid over-the-top 3D effects and colours. These will make the visualisation more difficult to understand.
Spatial Digital Twin
Digital twins are a virtual representation of a real-time object, place or thing. In NSW, we have invested in a Spatial Digital Twin. This allows spatialised data to be shared and viewed in 4 dimensions (with the fourth dimension being time).
This is a powerful way for data to be shared and visualised. Access the Spatial Services Customer Hub for more information.
NSW Design System
Explore the NSW Design System, a toolkit to help digital product teams create good customer experiences quickly. There is detailed guidance on data visualisation available.
Identifying potential solutions
Smart solutions are being deployed across Australia and the world. Take time to learn about technical solutions that are already available. You can find out about what is happening in other places, by exploring the resources below.
SmartNSW Case Study Library
The SmartNSW Case Study Library is a resource showcasing great outcomes for people and places enabled by smart technology and data solutions. Browse the library to see examples of relevant projects in the design stage.
Smart Places resource: Technical Guidance – Developing Places
The Technical Guidance: Developing Places (PDF 673.63KB) outlines the proposed treatments for the application of digital infrastructure to different place types. It includes general treatments for greenfield and brownfield/infill, as well as:
- public open spaces
- data-intensive industrial areas
- central business and commercial precincts.
It should be read in conjunction with the relevant standards and legislative requirements.
Australian Smart Communities Association
The Australian Smart Communities Association (ASCA) is Australia's only not-for-profit peak body dedicated to advocating on behalf of governments for smart communities in Australia.
ASCA members can access events and resources to collaborate with other people working on smart communities.
Smart Cities Council: Future of Place
The Smart Cities Council publishes a growing library of smart city resources.
The Smart Cities Council – Future of Place handbook provides guidance on the continually changing nature of our public places and spaces, and the relationship between people, place, technology and data.
Internet of Things of Alliance Australia (IoTAA)
Internet of Things of Alliance Australia (IoTAA) is the peak industry body and a driver of IoT for good and a data smart Australia. IoTAA produces a range of publications and resources, including case studies contributed by members.
G20 Global Smart Cities Alliance
The G20 Global Smart Cities Alliance on Technology Governance unites municipal, regional and national governments, private-sector partners and cities' residents around a shared set of principles for the responsible and ethical use of smart city technologies. The World Economic Forum, the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation, serves as a secretariat for the Alliance.
OECD, Smart Cities and Inclusive Growth
The OECD's Programme on Smart Cities and Inclusive Growth aims to:
- redefine the concept of smart cities around the contribution of digital innovation to better lives for all people
- measure how smart cities perform
- deliver wellbeing outcomes for citizens
- guide local and national governments in their efforts to reshape city governance, business models and stakeholder engagement.
Engaging the market
Engaging with the market can help you:
- identify and validate potential solutions
- understand practical challenges of deployment
- find solutions that make the best use of new and emerging technology
- find opportunities for partnerships to co-develop solutions
- develop your procurement approach and specifications.
At a basic level, market engagement involves:
- briefing market participants with your problem and outcome statements
- inviting them to submit proposals for solutions that may be appropriate.
You should be aware of your organisation's procurement policies and seek appropriate advice before engaging the market.
Market engagement methods
Market sounding
During market sounding, you can understand the market's views on potential solutions. You can do this by:
- researching and analysing the whole market
- meeting selected providers for discussion.
Market sounding does not require a commitment to progress with procurement.
However, you will need to ensure the market sounding process is transparent and that participants are treated equally. This will ensure any future procurements are not compromised.
Hackathon or challenge events
To run a hackathon or challenge event, you will need to publish an outcome or challenge statement(s).
These are typically in the form of a question starting with 'How might we…' to keep solutions ideation broad and focused on problems that need solving.
You then invite participants from across industry, government, and academia to come together to respond to the question(s).
Hackathons or challenge events can help you to uncover novel solutions to difficult problems. These ideas may not be well formed and may need further development before they are ready to be delivered.
Explore how we are finding new ways to get leading-edge technology solutions for smart places through the Smart City Innovation Challenges.
Piloting new ideas
Piloting is a great way to test new solutions before committing to full rollout. Pilots can help you:
- understand if a solution will work for your organisation without a large investment
- adapt business practices to accommodate the new solution without service interruption
- fine-tune a solution or delivery plan, before a more comprehensive rollout takes place
- establish and quantify benefits of a new solution and generate buy-in from internal and external stakeholders.
Pilot projects are most useful when you want to:
- ready your organisation and community for change
- check that the solution can integrate with existing systems and software
- test new partnership and ownership models.
Regulatory sandboxes
A regulatory sandbox is a special exemption from normal legal requirements. Sandboxes can only be set up by regulatory authorities such as governmental agencies responsible for overseeing specific industries.
Sandboxes are usually:
- put in place to inform potential regulatory change
- only allowed for trials or pilots with limited scope
- focused on testing and proving impacts and benefits, under changed regulatory conditions
- supported by risk management plans or safety management systems.
Setting up and using sandboxes or seeking changes to regulation to accommodate your solutions can take a lot of time.
Assess whether potential regulatory barriers can be addressed through other levers before pursuing a sandbox.
Establishing costs and benefits
From researching and engaging the market, you should have some cost estimates for the solutions you are planning to invest in.
When setting out cost estimates, be sure to identify any additional costs beyond the initial delivery. This might include:
- ongoing data costs associated with hardware and sensors
- data management costs associated with processing and storage
- costs related to data analysis, visualisation and sharing of data
- resourcing requirements
- education and training to help people use technology.
Developing an asset management plan will help quantify operational and ongoing costs. Learn more about asset management planning.
You also have information on the expected benefits your chosen solutions should deliver. These can be quantified and assigned a value.
By weighing the costs of the solution against the potential benefits, you can give decision-makers an indication of whether the initiative is worth investing in. This is called a cost-benefit analysis.
NSW Treasury Guidelines – Cost-Benefit Analysis
The NSW Treasury Guidelines: Cost-Benefit Analysiswill help you to undertake a cost-benefit analysis to weigh up risks and benefits versus costs.
Preparing a business case
In some cases, a business case will be required to support investment in your smart solution(s).
The need for a business case will depend on:
- the size and scale of your project
- the expected cost to deliver and operate your solution(s)
- your organisation's policies and requirements
- the potential source(s) of funding.
NSW Treasury's Business Case guidelines
The NSW Business Case Policy and Guidelines establish a best practice, clear and consistent approach to preparing business cases.
Project delivery planning
Create a project plan to support delivery. It should include:
- work breakdown and timeline
- roles and responsibilities, including governance arrangements
- budget
- quality control or benefits realisation
- risk management
- stakeholder engagement.
Governance arrangements
You will need to set out governance arrangements to support project delivery. To do this, you should consider:
- the size and scale of your project
- your organisation's existing governance frameworks and delegations
- the type and number of organisations involved
- the roles and responsibilities of people and organisations involved
- the source(s) of funding (or potential sources of funding)
- your place, the problems you are trying to solve, and the stakeholders related to this.
Your planned governance structures may change, depending on the procurement approaches and partnership models you adopt.
Delivering benefits that last
Before you start delivering your smart place solutions, you should set out plans for:
- how you will evaluate your project(s)
- how you will measure the benefits realised.
To do this, you should develop a benefits realisation plan. You should gather baseline data to help you quantify the impact of your solution.
Benefits Realisation Management Framework
The Benefits Realisation Management Framework provides best practice principles and concepts drawn from proven practice in setting up and managing programs that are transferable across NSW agencies. The framework informs investment decisions and establishes plans to realise intended benefits.
Asset management planning
NSW Government agencies and councils must have asset management plans in place. These plans should outline:
- how assets are looked after and maintained
- how risks and opportunities are managed.
The assets in a smart place include:
- new or upgraded digital connectivity infrastructure
- devices and enabling infrastructure
- data
- platforms and systems for managing data
- data storage systems
- data visualisation platforms and tools
- other supporting software and systems.
To realise the benefits of smart places into the future, you will have to ensure regular and ongoing management and maintenance is performed on these assets.
Each asset has its own lifecycle, replacement schedule and maintenance needs. The lifecycle usually incorporates planning, design, and asset creation, through to ongoing maintenance, and eventually disposal.
Asset management plans can help you:
- capture the maintenance needs of your new assets
- allocate appropriate maintenance funding
- maximise the life of your assets
- avoid unplanned outages and incidents.
You can engage with the market to understand operations and maintenance needs for each asset.
Smart Places resource: Technical Guidance – Cataloguing Assets
The Technical Guidance: Cataloguing Assets (PDF 389.52KB) outlines an approach to cataloguing information on assets in smart places to set up the foundations to:
- maximise the deployment of digital connectivity
- reduce construction and street clutter
- leverage commercial opportunities.
It should be read in conjunction with the relevant standards and legislative requirements.
Asset: Systems
New systems may be needed to support smart solutions. You may also need:
- greater computing capabilities
- integrations with existing systems.
Given the pace of technology change, you should plan to review systems regularly to support upgrades and replacements as needed.
Asset: Digital assets, including software and data management systems
Digital assets require regular maintenance. This includes:
- regular updates as per the software recommendations
- routine checks for software bugs or required patches
- installing required firmware updates.
Regular updates will ensure that they are secure and performing at optimum efficiency. This will ensure that software continues to provide accurate, available, and accessible information.
Asset: Data collected
You will need to manage and maintain data generated in your smart place to ensure:
- it is secure, with cyber risks appropriately addressed
- it is compatible and consistent with other data held by the organisation
- data quality is assured
- data is only retained while it has a purpose
- data is retired when it is no longer useful or current.
Managing data appropriately is part of good data governance.
The Smart Places Data Protection Policy will help you understand how data should be collected, managed and stored in smart places. This policy supports the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998.
Asset: Physical assets, such as IoT sensors and devices
You should plan to regularly monitor and maintain your physical assets. This may include:
- registration
- configuration and provisioning
- maintenance
- monitoring of connected devices.
You should ask suppliers for guidance on recommended maintenance.
Asset: Enabling infrastructure assets, such as smart poles and furniture
Infrastructure assets that enable smart technology should be catalogued and maintained. You should be checking to ensure:
- the power supply is maintained
- expected connectivity levels are maintained
- the infrastructure continues to support other smart technology assets.
Asset Management Policy
The NSW Government Asset Management Policy aims to drive better asset management through strengthening accountability, performance and capability across the public sector.
NSW Government's Infrastructure Data Management Framework
The NSW Government builds, owns and manages a significant portfolio of major infrastructure assets. The Infrastructure Data Management Framework is a set of guidelines, procedures and standard approaches to support consistent management of infrastructure data across the NSW Government sector.
Smart Places Data Protection Policy
The Smart Places Data Protection Policy is designed to support the NSW Smart Places Customer Charter. It will help you to uphold best practice and adhere to related policies and relevant laws, including the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998.
Internet of Things (IoT) Policy
The IoT Policy applies to all NSW Government agencies. Module 8 of the IoT Policy provides guidance for place owners on asset maintenance and management for smart place solutions, specific to IoT devices and networks.