Hitachi Solutions, Microsoft and South London Partnership (SLP) have teamed up to deliver an IoT platform to five London boroughs.
The SLP InnOvaTe project has used IoT sensors to undertake 40, yearlong trials across the five boroughs of Croydon, Kingston upon Thames, Merton, Richmond upon Thames and Sutton. The data collected ranges from air pollution to social care, and with the aim of helping people live better, healthier lives and to generate economic growth.
Now, in partnership with Hitachi Solutions and utilising Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, that data will be collected and visualised to aide understanding, generating insights for both the benefit of officers, councillors, local business and residents.
“The insights gathered by the InnOvaTe project are already making the lives of people in South London better,” said Tim Kidd, head of UK public sector at Hitachi Solutions. “Now, through this collaboration with SLP and Microsoft, we want to make it as easy as possible for others to access the data and deliver better outcomes in their local areas.”
Social care environments
One example of the technology is in social care environments. IoT sensors monitor residents’ movements and send the data to the platform. If decline in activity is detected, an alert is sent to the Independent Living Officers (ILOs) or out of hours contact centre so that they can check on the resident.
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Maureen, one of the residents whose life was saved by these sensors, explained her story in a video for Sutton Council. Since Maureen’s case, the sensors have identified 22 fuel poverty alerts and two critical health alerts.
Corporate head of digital strategy & portfolio at the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, David Grasty, said: “Having a unified platform will allow our data to be used efficiently, accessed easily and ultimately more helpful in delivering better outcomes for people in South London and beyond.”
Faith la Grange, director for local and regional government at Microsoft added: “Data, IoT and Smart solutions are rapidly becoming key components of Local Authority infrastructures, both in cities and rural areas.
“The ability to analyse real-time information to better understand what is going on in a region to keep residents safe, improve quality of life, make urban areas cleaner, keep our transport infrastructure moving, expedite the move to other greener travel modes and protect countryside, wildlife and nature are crucial for all authorities. With the work being delivered with SLP and Hitachi Solutions, we will help to create an ecosystem which all councils can leverage to tackle these challenges, and we couldn’t be prouder to be supporting the great work the South London Partnership is doing in these areas.”
