Eseye was able to maximise Streetline’s data efficiency while offering reliable connectivity and outstanding support.
Streetline is at the forefront of the Smart City movement. Not only was the sensor-enabled mobile and web parking application company crowned IBM Global Entrepreneur of the Year, but this year Streetline won a Best Mobile Innovation for Smart Cities award at the Mobile World Congress for their ingenious app, Parker™.
The app helps reduce congestion by guiding drivers to the nearest available parking space, while Streetline’s full suite of real-time and historical applications, ParkSight™, enable cities to use data to improve parking planning and policy. With its intelligent parking solutions, Streetline is helping cities significantly reduce emissions, better manage parking, and reduce urban traffic.
Health and environmental issues tackled
Smart parking is a way to tackle a major source of health and environmental issues. Drivers searching for parking account for an estimated 30% of urban traffic and generate a significant amount of CO2 emissions. Having already made an impact in the US, Streetline is a leading force in the movement to help cities go cleaner and greener, and is now bringing its wealth of expertise to the UK.
Birmingham is one of the first cities to join Streetline’s Smart City initiative. With 1 million residents and over 160,000 commuters, its inhabitants could significantly benefit from intelligent M2M solutions for their city. To aid Birmingham in becoming a Smart City, Streetline needed to measure “event counts” (the detection of a parked vehicle in an individual space) from their car park sensors and use analytics software to understand people’s parking patterns and better manage congestion. For the project to be successful, Streetline needed the best in reliable connectivity, which is where Eseye proved indispensable.
Eseye understood the requirements and committed to find solutions
Streetline contacted Eseye to discuss using routers as delivery gateways. Its car park sensors register an “event” using a combination of a magnetometer and a light sensor to indicate that a car is parked above. The company developed its own gateway device with built-in cameras that not only counts cars coming into the car park, but that can also collect key data. Each gateway uses two modems and one SIM card.
This fully redundant solution means that if a network outage or technical issue were to disrupt the performance of the primary SIM, the second could kick in and continue seamlessly delivering data. Getting as close as possible to 100% uptime is of the utmost importance to Streetline who need to meet the requirements of their strict service level agreements in order to accurately obtain and collate the data. Eseye understood Streetline’s business requirements and were committed to finding the most efficient means of data collection without compromising on connectivity.
Optimising efficiency and lowering cost
When Eseye analysed Streetline’s existing proposal, it was clear there was sufficient scope to optimise efficiency and offer lower data costs. As Eseye enjoys a good relationship with several mobile network operators, the M2M solutions provider is able to secure a good price on high data demands. A key area for data efficiency is within the fall-back solution, an AnyNet™ SIM steered and locked to the O2 network, which eliminates the need for roaming charges.
Streetline wanted localised support and billing with a global presence and trusted advisor that could help with any teething issues. They really appreciate the human element that comes with working with a company like Eseye, and understand that we will work to make them a success. It really is the case that their business is our business, and as we’re passionate about green technology, we were very proud to be a part of this exciting project.
Says Paul Marshall, COO, Eseye
Thank you Eseye for your flexibility and hard work – your support ensured the project went out on time and without a hitch. We really appreciate the excellent service and thorough support from your knowledgeable staff.
Asdrubal Pichardo Managing Director EMEA and APAC, Streetline