What is a Smart City?
A smart city installs sensors which can share information with the public, businesses, city managers and other smart systems. The city connects its sensors and services via the internet of things (IoT). The different sensor systems store their information in a common data warehouse, making the knowledge available to those who need it.
Clever Solutions to Urban Problems
Count pedestrians, vehicles, bicycles and passengers on public transport.
Monitor air quality.
Identify and reduce traffic congestion.
Quantify the use of footpaths and cycle ways.
Let retail units discover vital analytics like sales conversion rate, average queuing time and the most popular area of store.
Assess the impact of development initiatives and use the data to inform future decisions
Privacy Concerns
Collecting all this data may raise concerns about people's privacy. Our big data systems don't identify any individuals. Indeed, although we use video analytics technology the system sees people as "moving blobs". There is no face-recognition nor do we access data from peoples' mobile phones. We know how many people went where and when, but not who they were.
Making Cities Better Places to Live
The flow of pedestrians affects the whole city environment. It is important to know not only the numbers of people but also how the numbers change over time. An accurate people metering system provides feedback on changes in people’s behaviour within the city and allows the council to effectively manage the flow of people, vehicles and bicycles around the area.
About Retail Sensing and the IoT Smart City Sensors
Retail Sensing are a UK-based technology manufacturing company. Our head office is in Manchester.
Our Smart City devices use our own video analytics algorithm to detect pedestrians, bicycles and vehicles. They include data logging hardware and Internet-of-Things connectivity.
The ISO9001 quality approved system is implemented around the city and sends real time data to “Brokers”. The brokers process the data and make it available to all end users.
We're currently involved in smart city projects around the world including California, Australia, Canada and the UK.
Counting Bicycles
Counting bicycles 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.
Counting Pedestrians
In the high streets and city centres, the Smart Counter (called IoT-VT) counts people. It provides both real-time and historical data for big data analytics. Business-people looking to open a new shop or restaurant could be given accurate figures for footfall past their proposed location to help them assess the potential for their new venture.
Counting Vehicles
With smart counters cities can effectively manage the flow of traffic along the busiest routes across the city and monitor the days and times of the heaviest flow - Smart Traffic.
Counting Passengers
Transport authorities will know the numbers of people arriving by bus or train at various points in the city, by time of day. Real-time occupancy is also shown.
Monitoring Air Quality
Air quality monitors connect to people and vehicle counting units around the city. Concentrations of particulates are constantly reported, along with temperature, humidity, wind speed, direction etc.
The IoT Communications Technology and Specifications
The sensing technology works with many communications protocols, including
Ethernet
Wi-Fi
3G / 4G / 5G
IBM Watson IoT Platform
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The sensing units are mounted, for example, on lamp posts around the city. They can also be used indoors.
Experience and Expertise
Retail Sensing combines 50 years of engineering expertise, with cutting-edge AI software, to deliver precise people and vehicle counting solutions. Over 15000 video counting systems installed across 40 countries, all GDPR compliant.