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February 20th, 2005, 07:33 AM

Ipoh City Goes Virtual

The Challenge
Ipoh is the capital of Perak, a state which was the heartland of Malaysia’s once thriving tin industry. Like most of Malaysia’s cities and towns, Ipoh faced the challenge of delivering faster and better services to a public whose expectations has been rising in one of Asia’s fastest developing countries. This meant it needed to expand the channels to deliver its services to the public, cut down the queues for residents making payments and applications, facilitate a better environment to promote business and development, and improve the productivity of its employees.

Led by progressive Ipoh City Mayor Dato’ Haji Talaat Husain, the council had in recent years been exploring ways of cutting down bureaucratic red tape, and leveraging information and communications technology (ICT) to deliver better services to the public. Ipoh City Council envisioned a time when a resident could pay for his property assessment rates or parking compound, reserve a hall for social gatherings, apply for or renew his business permit or submit building plans all from a personal computer at home or in the office, or from kiosks strategically located throughout the city. All the core businesses of City Council are to be automated. In short, transforming Ipoh into a “Virtual City” was Dato’ Talaat’s vision.

The Solution
Once renowned for its tin industry, Ipoh is now making waves by becoming Malaysia’s first ‘Virtual City.’ By automating a growing number of services through use of ICT, the council’s Virtual City project is beginning to benefit its 500,000 residents. Dato’ Talaat says the Ipoh’s Virtual City project, implemented with the co-operation of the Canadian government as a role model, is the first of its kind in Asia. Perak Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Tajol Rosli Ghazali launched the project in March 2000. Simply put, a ‘Virtual City’ is a system of electronic links between City Council and its citizens. It allows the average citizen to conduct most of his business with the council electronically, 24-hours a day, 7-days a week, without the involvement of a city council employee.

With the implementation of the Virtual City system, Ipoh residents can now pay their bills, assessment rates and parking summonses online and communicate with the city council via special kiosks, the Internet and an interactive telephony system.

“This enables our residents to make payments free of the barrier of time and location. By accessing our website, an Ipoh resident holidaying in Europe can pay for his assessment anytime,” says Dato’ Talaat.

“We are bringing City Hall into the homes of people, enabling them to conduct dealings at their convenience,” he says.

The project was implemented by Virtual Commerce Software Sdn Bhd, the Malaysian distributor of the Virtual City applications developed by Canada-based Virtual City Software Inc. Virtual Commerce Software, a Microsoft partner, built the Ipoh Virtual City applications on Microsoft technology.

While the virtual city or ‘smart city’ concept has been in existence for some years in the West, it is a relatively new idea in Asia. In Canada, Virtual City Software implemented the concept in cities like Vancouver, Richmond, Victoria and Yellowknife.

The first phase of Ipoh Virtual City cost RM2 million and comprised three main elements — an interactive voice recording (IVR) telephony system, Internet connection to the various departments and five kiosks to enable people to link up with the council. This ensures an almost 100 per cent coverage as the public can access the system via one of the three methods.

“People can go into the system through the kiosks, Internet and telephone to pay bills, summonses and assessment rates via credit cards,” says Dato’ Talaat.

Under the second phase, which is expected to cost about RM4 million, the council plans to essentially automate its core businesses and services. The system will be upgraded to facilitate online submission of building plans, checking of property development status and certificates of fitness, business license applications and renewals, issuance of compounds, booking of council facilities, and a smart card to pay for use of city facilities. Virtual Commerce Software started work on the second phase in September 2001 and is scheduled for completion by end 2002.

“For example, if architects want to look for certain plans before they develop a piece of land they can search the system, download the plans and pay only the normal fee without even coming to the council building,” says Dato’ Talaat.

Phase three of the system comprising the development of a “smart community” well-versed in the information technology would be implemented by 2003.

There is increasing public acceptance of the virtual city concept and this has improved revenue collection, says the mayor. Between its launch in March 2000 and December 2001, over 100,000 enquiries including about 5,000 payment transactions were registered through the three new payment channels.

From this, a total of more than RM1 million was collected of which approximately RM500,000 was via the Web, RM426,000 through the kiosks while the IVR channel garnered RM130,000. Ipoh City Council is optimistic its revenue collection through these three channels will reach RM10 million within two years.

Residents have expressed concerns about security issues, especially in terms of making payment by credit card over the Internet. But such concerns have been allayed as there have been no cases of security breaches, says Dato’ Talaat. He points to instances where wealthy individuals are confident enough to make assessment payments of up to RM30,000 via the Internet. Paying through the Internet is the fastest growing payment method, and “this gives us the confidence that we are on the right track,” he adds.

The virtual city concept has also shortened queues at City Hall, and reduced the number of service counters from eight to four. In addition, the system also acts as an information line, handling frequently asked questions. This has eased municipal chores, enabling staff to be deployed to handle more productive duties including assisting in the backend operations.

Foundation built on the Microsoft platform
A project as important as Ipoh Virtual City obviously needs to be based on a robust, versatile and high performance platform. So it is no surprise that end-to-end Microsoft technology provides the ‘engine’ which keeps whole system running with clockwork precision.

While the primary data server at City Hall is powered by a HP9000 running HP/UX, the web server for Virtual City applications runs on Microsoft’s Windows NT Server 4 SP6 and Internet Information Server 4.0.

Microsoft’s enterprise-class Relational Database Management System SQL Server 7 is used as the primary data store for the Virtual City applications. Overall system control and remote diagnostics is done with Microsoft SMS while Microsoft Office 2000 is used for report generation and basic report filtering.

The Virtual City kiosks also rely on Microsoft technology as each unit runs on Windows NT Workstation 4 SP6 interfaced with primary kiosk update manager on RAS. The other key channel of the virtual city concept - the IVR system — also operates on the Microsoft platform. The system’s telephone access server runs on Windows NT Server 4 SP6 with Microsoft SQL Server as the data store.

Virtual Commerce Software managing director Tan Wah Sun says the Virtual City applications were developed using Microsoft’s integrated development tools such as Visual Basic and Visual C++.

Tan says the company is revising the architectural model for Ipoh City’s new portal-based Virtual City applications to take advantage of the exciting new Windows DNA2000 features. WinDNA (Windows Distributed Internet Architecture) is Microsoft’s suggested approach to designing mission-critical enterprise applications.

“We are revising the application suite completely to incorporate portal elements with extended and expanded Web coverage,” he says.

The second phase of Ipoh Virtual City, with its extensive Web focus, is a perfect fit with Microsoft’s .Net platform, adds Tan. The .NET initiative aims to make information available any time, any place, on any device. By bringing employees, customers, data, and business applications into a coherent interactive whole, .NET allows businesses to benefit from greatly increased efficiency and productivity.

Tan says the new Virtual City applications will run on the .NET Enterprise Servers such as Windows 2000 Server for load balancing, SQL Server 2000 for clustering support and Application Center 2000 to assist in consolidated systems management.

The .NET Enterprise Servers enable companies to integrate, manage, and Web-enable the enterprise on a fast-track basis. Designed for mission-critical performance, .NET Enterprise Servers are built from the ground up for interoperability, using open Web standards such as Extensible Markup Language (XML). XML data will allow for easier data interchange between Virtual City applications, which will be developed using the sophisticated but user friendly tools in Microsoft Visual Studio 7, says Tan.

The new Virtual City portal will also feature Microsoft’s .NET Passport to provide a secure environment that allows users to engage in online commercial transactions. Online security is a big concern for many people and Microsoft Passport Services allay such fears. It includes a single sign-in name and password, and a “wallet” service for fast online purchases.

Virtual Commerce Software is also developing a city card using Windows for Smart Cards. It will also be using Microsoft/Motorola VoxML as an alternative to telephone interfaces.

Tan says the Microsoft platform is ideal for the Virtual City system because of its cutting-edge technology, mission critical backend applications, cost-effectiveness and the availability of a comprehensive suite of design tools.

Add to that the lower cost of ownership under the Microsoft platform compared to other systems and the easy availability of personnel skilled in Microsoft technology, Tan explains. Dato’ Talaat concurs, saying Ipoh City Council is pleased that the Virtual City solution has been “running very well.”

So, as Ipoh forges ahead with its bold initiative to make weave ICT into the fabric of its community, Microsoft is providing the innovative technology to make Ipoh Virtual City a model of success that, hopefully, will be emulated by city councils all over Asia.

Last Updated: Tuesday, December 14, 2004