Resilience of smart cities and mock drills as strategic tool

Smart cities concept emphasis on cities to be safe, resilient and sustainable. This has been iterated also under Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Mock drills & exercises are mechanism to find out the existing level of preparedness and resilience of stakeholders in an urban environment. They are an essential part of preparation for disaster events which involve community, emergency support functionaries and other decision making bodies. However, it is observed that drills are not considered as a strategic tool for smart cities in context of disaster management. The participation of the community helps to break the physical and mental barriers to respond in a coordinated manner in case of disaster event. The paper focuses to highlight briefly this potential contribution of drills towards the resilience of a smart city as well as their indirect contribution towards the economy and infrastructure planning. The developed frameworks and the given examples highlight this fact. Usage of technology such as geospatial, drones, online surveillance etc. by the control centre in a smart city is recommended to effectively visualize, communicate and assess the results of drills to generate simulation scenarios enhanced with augmented reality.