Maas and More

From: many public service operation centres
In the Netherlands (local) authorities currently perform central service operations from around 150 locations. This concerns the monitoring and operation of tunnels, remote operation of bridges and locks, central (regional) deployment of traffic management, central monitoring and control of city access and management (largely camera surveillance centres), and crowd management. The broad common insight is that the current situation described above can be much more effective and efficient. In popular (and overly simple) terms, it is not very efficient that in the Netherlands there are some 150 publicly funded locations where multiple public employees are ‘on standby’ until their often short-lived deployment is needed. This broad common insight prompted the iCentre programme whereby centres and services will be smartly integrated and combined into ‘iCentre services’.

To: iCentre services
An iCentre comprises the smart integrated or combined performance of the operational and tactical tasks of local authorities for the monitoring and operation of domains and objects, with the aim of (significantly) reducing the joint structural costs for road and city authorities and improving performance in the domains and quality of the service provision to users and residents.

Through: the smart combination and integration of tasks and domains
Through the ‘smart integration and combination’ of tasks for (1) multiple domains and (2) multiple clients, private parties offer a range of their own developed iCentre services (using a cafeteria model). Depending on the specific situation and needs, local authorities can purchase these iCentre services, thereby creating a smart integration and combination of (3) public and private operation of tasks for them. For the moment iCentre services relate to six domains: bridge and lock operation, tunnel operation and monitoring, (road) traffic management, parking management, city surveillance and crowd management.

Result: low costs and higher profits
A smart integration of domains, tasks and systems can help significantly reduce the structural costs for local authorities (10–20% annually) and improve the quality of the service provision to road and waterway users as well as citizens (5-15%) when compared with the current situation in which local authorities manage and staff centres themselves.

Testing in: Network of Living Labs
In the iCentre programme 13 private parties and 6 local authorities are jointly developing smart iCentre services that are being developed, tested and demonstrated in a large number of private and public living labs. The private parties show through the Living Labs how the services being offered actually work out in practice and demonstrate that they deliver on their promise. The public parties gain insight through the Living Labs: How does the service they are considering purchasing actually work in practice? What is being asked of them? What ´guarantee´ do they have that it will actually work? A Living Lab already provides an opportunity to put the service to the test. All public and private living labs together form a cohesive “Network of Living Labs”.