Borough council to use technology developed for Manchester CityVerve for projects including public safety intelligence hub and smart traffic access
Southend-on-Sea Borough Council has signed an agreement to use the Cisco Kinetic for Cities platform in a number of pilots aimed at developing smarter services.
It indicated this is part of its digital strategy aimed at providing a greener environment and sustainable growth, along with reducing the costs of its interactions with the public.
The initiative will involve creating a technology hub in the town, using Cisco’s capabilities in connectivity, data and security. It will also involve a number of ecosystem partners.
Among the pilots will be the creation of an intelligence hub to use CCTV and video analytics to reduce anti-social behaviour and improve public safety, and smart traffic access and parking management, using data solutions already developed by the council.
Others will include the provision of connected care homes, air quality monitoring, flood management and energy management.
All the projects will make use of Cisco Kinetic for Cities – which provides a set of tools and guidelines for creating a smart city framework – to ensure data and initiatives are connected. The platform was initially developed for the Manchester CityVerve project, where it has been used to monitor CO2 levels and develop smart transport solutions.
Grow and evolve
Nick Corrigan, the council’s head of digital futures, said: “Innovation is vital to the UK’s success as a global nation, and we are delighted to be playing a key role in this. We want to further enable our citizens and businesses to grow and evolve, in line with the rest of the UK and with competition globally.”
Last year Southend-on-Sea made a major investment in its digital infrastructure with a £3.2 million deal with CityFibre to install a 50km ‘dark fibre’ broadband network around its public sector sites.
This was aimed at upgrading the connectivity of the council’s sites while providing the scope for internet service providers to harness unused parts of the network for services to business and residents.
Image: Southend-onSea from the pier, by Velela, public domain through Wikimedia
