Sergei Sobyanin talks about major digital city governance projects

Moscow is a global leader in digital services. Last year alone, mos.ru online system provided 650 million public services, as told by Sergei Sobyanin in his public talk “Made in Moscow. Made for the people” during the Znanie. Pervye education marathon. 

“A modern city cannot exist without a digital environment; Moscow being one of the global leaders in that regard. We are number one in the world in digital services, according to the United Nations’ data. It is hard to imagine Moscow today without digitalization and information technologies,” emphasized Moscow Mayor.

Moscow is already running a number of advanced digital projects focused on making city governance more efficient and Muscovites’ lives more convenient.

One of those projects is AI-based Moscow Digital Twin. “We have digitalized everything, starting from the tops of skyscrapers and finishing with underground utilities networks. This brings about the new level of governance, design, construction and control over everything happening in the city,” said Mr. Sobyanin.

Right now, the Digital Twin is considered one of the best digital projects in the world while exclusively Russian technologies were used to make it, as Moscow Mayor pointed out.

Another Moscow innovation is the Electronny Dom service focused on improved multiple-apartment housing management. It is a platform intended for residents, real estate owners and managing companies. At the moment, 98 per cent of apartment blocks are already connected to Electronny Dom.

Moscow also has a smart transport system considered to be one of the best in the world. It controls transport flows and traffic light signals, tracking the traffic situation throughout the city. It has an in-built photographic evidence system for tracking traffic rules. Thanks to the digital management, as Mr. Sobyanin revealed, the number of traffic accident-related deaths in Moscow has gone down 2.5 times.

Another area of Moscow life that is now impossible to imagine without artificial intelligence is healthcare.

“Millions of scans, millions of diagnoses are being made not by us, not by doctors, but by the artificial intelligence. Of course, a doctor is responsible for signing off and making a decision, but this is not the future, this is the reality now. Of course, going forward, we have to move to more and more advanced technologies. In essence, that would be a digital twin that would make doctors able to predict your health conditions, the state of your body, the treatment, the bespoke approach to your treatment based on your genetic makeup and other features of your body. That future is not far, it is something we are busy with today,” said Sergei Sobyanin.

Moscow Electronic School is another project; it is one of the largest online libraries, a system of portfolios, journals, virtual laboratories, self-control and other elements of the education system. According to Moscow Mayor, Moscow schools right now is among the top five in the world no matter which rating you look at.

The Russpass digital service has launched recently for tourists arriving in Moscow and Muscovites planning trips around the country. The majority of Russian regions have already joined it: this is especially handy as trips abroad are limited.