Smart cities, make you think of an ecosystem that is completely interconnected, seamlessly. Cities of the future will be truly smart when they are built on a unified platform – that can support smart lighting and every other device. It is what will make the city energy-efficient too. Cities need a smart sensor platform network. It is what provides the connection from a sensor or field device to a centralized IoT or data collection platform. Through it, the city’s infrastructure collects data and uses it for decision-making purposes.
Smart Sensors for cities:
The network and platform established for smart street light control, for example, will not only serve the primary application, but also other sensors and applications, forming a “smart sensor platform network” for other systems across domains such as environment, traffic, public safety, metering, and waste,
Having different applications connected to a shared smart sensor platform network provides the opportunity for data collection and analytics across different domains.
This also provides new insights that a single domain vertical cannot offer. For example, it helps gauge how rain can affect traffic flow and street light control.
Urban Sensing
Using CCTV cameras and video analytics to anonomously detect people (so the system knows a person walked down a street but doesn’t know who that person is) is one example of smart city sensors in action. The people, bicycle and vehicle counts are uploaded over the internet to “Brokers”. The Brokers process the data and makes it available to all end users – comprising an Internet of Things. Such a system is supplied by our sister company – Retail Sensing.
Sensing Pedestrians
In the high streets and city centres, VT Smart Counters are counting people. They provides both real-time and historical data for “Big Data” analytics.
They can also be used within individual retail units to discover vital analytics like sales conversion rate, average queuing time and the most popular area of a store. This demonstrates in a practical way the city’s commitment to retail on the high street.
The Smart Counters are attached to lampposts around the city.
Sensing Bicycles
The Smart Counter can also be used to count bicycles. This helps monitor and support the promotion of healthy travelling and gives a measure of how green or pollution-free areas are within a city centre.
Sensing Vehicles
Smart Counts accurately count cars down roads and at junctions. Councils can effectively manage the flow of traffic along the busiest routes across the city and monitor the days and times of the heaviest flow.
Combining the Counts and Scoring Effectiveness of Smart City Projects
The Internet-of-Things data provided helps quantify the use of footpaths and cycle ways. It shows the use of roads, including commuter routes around schools and major routes through the city centre. This can help score the effectiveness of Smart City projects , which aims to build and deliver a smarter, more connected Manchester. Creating a city that uses technology to meet the complex needs of its people.
From a health perspective Smart City data to monitor the effectiveness of sports activity, events and jogging routes within parks.
Counting on Public Transport
The Smart Counters are not just being used around the city streets. Buses, trains and trams can also benefit.
Sensing Passengers on Buses
Transport authorities can know the numbers of people arriving by bus at various points in the city, by time of day. The data helps revenue protection – reconciling tickets bought with passenger numbers. It also enables effective fleet bus management with services around the city centre. With real-time GPS location of buses, it gives a clear picture of what is going on.