Smart Cities have the power to provide data about what’s going on in several unprecedented ways. They change the way we can understand, manage and study cities, and people can be better engaged when they have access to more information about their city regularly.

A smart city consists of various IoT sensors which can share information with the public, businesses, city managers and other sensor systems. These sensors include people, vehicle, or cycle counters, plus many more built to accurately monitor all types of traffic within any given environment. The city connects its sensors and services via the internet of things and these different sensor systems store their information in a common data warehouse and make it available to those who need it whenever they need it.

Manchester City Council

The Problem

Every city needs investment, it can be the lifeblood that magnifies growth and culture within a region, and with investment comes opportunity for jobs, better lifestyles, and helping to build an overall better place to live. However, how does a council prove that firstly they need investment, and then whether the investment they receive is being put to work well enough? In comes IoT and Smart City technologies.

This is a problem that Manchester City Council were facing. Already a vibrant and cultural city that is the home to thousands of unique businesses and hundreds of events throughout the year, the council needed a solution to be able to benchmark their current efforts in managing the cities promotional events and business calendar and to then review how their changes to this calendar affected the footfall, traffic and engagement within the city.

The Solution & Outcome

Our consultant worked closely with the team at Manchester City Council to propose, plan and execute a smart city VT Sensing solution working to help the council reach their goals. This technology tracks and monitors footfall specifically throughout the city, measuring peaks and troughs over the course of the year and in line with events or initiatives.

It allows the council to get a better understanding of areas that need investment, by realising the potential in footfall trends within certain areas at certain times. And once an area has received investment in whatever form that me be, the same technology will then be used to justify its implementation by once again reviewing the trends and the potential increase in traffic.  

R-Com IoT

R-Com IoT are one of the UK’s leading manufacturers of Smart City and IoT solutions, offering end to end support and management of any and all IoT strategies throughout a wide range of industries.

IoT is currently a hot topic and many organisations, councils and business leaders are aware that IoT can offer a not only support their infrastructure but can provide solutions to many issues that were previously thought as unsolvable or expensive and time consuming. However, it’s not entirely clear where to go for the support and guidance needed to begin.

R-Com offer a full IoT service from identifying issues and consultancy, to manufacturing and installing IoT equipment and even analysing the data to offer outcomes. Contact us today to see how our IoT solutions can support your infrastructure.