Page 18 - URA Annual Report 2020-21

MANAGING DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
The URIS is an excellent tool for consolidating data relating to the built environment, which can be applied extensively to urban renewal operations. For example, in the eight adjoining redevelopment projects in To Kwa Wan under the district-based approach, our team utilised the system for the planning and holistic design of residential units, basements, public car parks, green pedestrian streets and road network facilities, so as to optimise benefits to the community under this new approach.
The URA has also applied innovative technology to its retrofitting projects. Digital remote monitoring devices have been installed in the renovation and retrofitting projects at four rehousing blocks and at the industrial building on Yu Chau West Street in Cheung Sha Wan, such that management staff in a central control room can monitor the operational status of various types of building services equipment and respond to sudden failures. The repair and maintenance details of newly-replaced facilities have also been digitised and integrated into the system for compilation of a building maintenance manual in digital format, which helps the management staff formulate future maintenance plans based on the conditions of the facilities.
The URA will continue to act as a pioneer in this area to test various building maintenance concepts, innovative methods and technologies. These will be further optimised and ultimately promoted to the building maintenance and property facility management sectors, thereby enhancing their services and quality.
Digital remote monitoring units installed at URA’s rehousing block
I am pleased to say that the innovative spirit and hard work of the URIS development team has been recognised by the IT industry on a global level with a special achievement award. I hope that the URIS can be further optimised in collaboration with the Common Spatial Data Infrastructure system now under construction by the Government. This will provide more diversified geographic and spatial data on a real-time basis and, in the long run, enable the URA to analyse built environment data more comprehensively in order to enhance holistic planning and decision making. I also hope that it will be used more extensively in different urban renewal tasks, including project execution and management, project scheduling, cost control and the management of property facilities.
With a craving for innovation, URA team receives the 2021 Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Award for its excellent performance in applying the Geographic Information System.
Wise use of technology to fight the pandemic and maintain pace of work
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the entire community and the URA was not spared either. Despite needing to constantly adjust our operations to abide by the Government’s anti-epidemic measures, we have been able to maintain the pace of urban renewal by proactively adopting new technologies to facilitate project implementation.
14 URA ANNUAL REPORT 2020-21