The role of Urban Control and Command Centers in the face of COVID-19: The case of COR in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic imposes a whole new way for cities to deal with crises. More than ever, in order to protect the citizens, cities need to rely on data to address such a public health emergency. In this sense, the Urban Control and Command Centers (CCCs) are an important governance organism to help the monitoring and the management of the complex dynamic of contemporary cities. These centralized and integrated management structures in the form of a governmental agency can aid the decision makers into a more coordinated, systemic, strategic, and data-driven intervention. In Rio de Janeiro's case, the city Urban CCC-called Rio de Janeiro Operations Center (COR in the Portuguese abbreviation)-is mostly designed to monitor the daily routine of the different systems and infrastructures that compose the city's dynamic, to plan and integrate operations for big events like Rio 2016 Olympic Games and to manage emergency situations. With the monitoring center, Rio is able to identify abnormalities and make sure that any interference in the city can be resolved in a timely manner, in order to ensure that the city comes back to normal in the face of a disruption and runs as smoothly as possible. Regarding the context of the pandemic of the COVID-19, Urban CCCs can also be an important tool to manage health emergencies. In this paper, the case of the COR is presented, showing how this Brazilian city is using its Urban CCC to monitor and assist the authorities with real time data intelligence to respond to this unprecedented emergency.