Relying on the sound information technology and the development of the Internet industry, Zhejiang Province has been vigorously promoting and strengthening the construction of “digital government”. To this end, the Provincial Government and all the municipal governments and most of the county (district, city) governments have set up a special management department for data resource to carry out unified leadership over, unified planning of and unified construction of the digital development in the whole province. At present, a number of digital applications represented by the “urban brain” have achieved initial success. The “digital government” has not only become a powerful tool for the modernization of the governance capabilities of governments and departments at all levels, but enabled the people to enjoy the benefits brought about by “digitalization”.
The enforcement of “the online data transmission replacing people’s personal visit”
On the second floor of Zhuji Public Service Center in Zhejiang Province, the reporter saw an orderly distribution of office affairs such as the civil affairs, the real estate registration, and the approval of investment projects. Different from the traditional window counters, the areas are separated by partitions in order to ensure the order of work and the privacy of each visitor. In a compartment for second-hand housing transactions, many people are waiting for services.
Xu Yaping, executive deputy director of Zhuji Public Service Center, said that originally the second-hand housing transaction needs to go through at least 9 working days in the departments of finance, taxation, national land recourse and housing management. Now, a visitor can finish his service procedures in about 1 hour, thanks the assembly of all the related departments and data sharing.
This is a vivid epitome of “the online data transmission replacing people’s personal visit”. The data required for the affairs related to the people in Zhuji use the ID card and the unified social credit code as an index to integrate the data banks of 25 departments onto the public data platform to provide data services for the “one ID card for all the services” office information management system.
“As long as an ID card is available, the visitor can get the required certification materials from the public data platform.” Xu Yaping said that with the digital transformation and the full equipment of self-service machines, the windows at the public service center are continuously integrated. The number staff at the reception desk has been reduced from 320 to 240, and the quantity of copying materials needed to be provided by people has been reduced by more than half from the original 700,000 copies throughout the year.
In the lobby of Hangzhou Administrative Service Center, Xu Wei, a citizen who had just got the qualification certificate for the network car practitioners in only two or three minutes, told the reporter that when he applied for the approval to be a taxi driver five years ago, he needed to provide his academic credentials, a notarial certificate of no major traffic accidents, a notarial certificate of no criminal punishment, the driver’s license and other materials required by several departments, and this “trouble” is now gone.
Meng Gang, director of Zhejiang Provincial Development and Reform Commission, said that by 2022, Zhejiang will establish an all-round integrated digital work system providing all the core services that are properly the responsibilities of government departments at all levels, basically becoming “a province of mobile government services”.
“Payment after treatment” and “Payment after leaving the hospital”
Luo Fang, a resident of Fuyang District, had two operations in his stomach and cervical vertebrae in 2018, and more than half of his medical expenses totaling about 55,000 yuan was the reimbursed. “What makes me feel convenient is that I can make an appointment through the “Fuyang Health” WeChat public account, greatly reducing the time spent on queuing for registration and payment, I can get clear information about the doctors at a glance, and the patient has a right to autonomous choices completely.” Luo said.
“Through the exploration into smart medical care, we have fundamentally changed the situation of ‘doctors collecting debts and patients owing debts’ . Doctors and patients have increased mutual trust,” said Yu Jian, deputy director of the First People’s Hospital of Fuyang District.
The “payment after treatment” credit medical treatment system started in Fuyang District is now being promulgated in Hangzhou. According to incomplete statistics, over 780,000 residents in Hangzhou enjoy smart medical service, a total of 3.3 billion yuan has been duly paid, the amount unduly paid is only 25,000 yuan, and the rate of the unduly paid amount is less than one 100,000th.
The changes brought about by the digital transformation of the governments are often reflected in the subtleties, but the people’s sense of fulfillment is greatly improved. Today, not only the local people can enjoy the convenience brought by the digital transformation, but also the tourists from other places to Zhejiang can enjoy the “benefits brought by digitalization”. On the big screen of tourism big data of Hangzhou “City Brain”, the real-time tourist volume and accommodating capacity of popular scenic spots such as West Lake, the analysis of online hotel booking, the consumption analysis and other data are clear at a glance. The person in charge of Hangzhou Tourism Management Committee said that the data of different departments are shared to allow tourists to “enjoy their tour for an extra hour” in Hangzhou.
According to Zhejiang Provincial Development and Reform Commission, by 2022, the livelihood network, the service network and the security network covering the entire province of Zhejiang will be basically completed, with all kinds of social services to be made individualized, precise and active.
The new technique of data access management improves “areas of weakness”
Every night, the music fountain at Hangzhou Hubin Road on the bank of West Lake can always attract a large number of tourists, and this gathering of people in a short period of time poses a great potential threat to security. In order to ensure security, the management department has always been adopting the measure of “facing changes with consistency”, by setting up hard fences for isolation all the year round, and by taking some other compulsory measures such as such as “no stop for the subway” and no stop for the buses at the peak traffic hours. These steps not only have been proven to be less effective, but have negatively affected the tourists’ experience dramatically.
In the second half of 2018, the Lakeside Sub-district was connected to the “Urban Brain” of Hangzhou. Through big data analysis, it is found that although the peak number of visitors to the music fountain along the lake can reach tens of thousands, there are only a few thousand visitors usually and merely more than a thousand during the off-season. According to this analysis, Lakeside Sub-district has formulated a three-level emergency response mechanism, to take precise control measures and to dynamically manage this scenic spot on the basis of the flow of people. As a result, the number of days for placing hard isolation fences has dropped from 365 days to 36 days.
“The difficulties in the past work must be managed through ‘data’ access. Through the use of new technologies, we have overcome ‘dependence on pathways’ and eliminated the ‘blind zones for experience’, and improved ‘weakness in capabilities’.” Wang Lu, a member of the Party Committee of Lakeside Sub-district in Shangcheng District, said.
The “lakeside fountain” phenomenon is a vivid manifestation of the digital transformation of the governments in Zhejiang in terms of modern urban governance. At present, many major cities have established departments of urban management, traffic police, tourism, environmental protection, and some districts, counties and sub-districts have created special work teams, extending the application to many areas of city governance.
Zheng Rongxin, director of the Hangzhou Municipal Data Resources Administration, believes that the new smart city is characterized by the use of artificial intelligence plus the big data support and digital transformation to realize the transformation of governance concepts and capabilities, and by the use of the strong power of data to enhance the governance level of modern cities, thus changing the pattern of “minding business of one’s own” among various departments in the past.
