Fighting climate change with IoT bikes

Birmingham City Council needed to reduce their city’s carbon footprint and traffic congestion. Our partner called us in to help achieve this with 4,000 IoT bikes.

Birmingham’s traffic congestion was at an all time high, which meant emissions were rising too. So the Council set out to promote a healthier, greener lifestyle for its citizens by providing thousands of free bicycles and cycle training for low-income families.

But just sending out the bikes as they were would have left the Council blind to the data they needed: air quality, traffic flow, health benefits, and more.

They needed an intelligent IoT solution that would give them the data they needed to make informed decisions about the future of their city’s infrastructure.

The solution

Nano SIMs, IoT sensors, and unsteered Multi-network connectivity for 100% uptime.

We built an IoT solution by combining over 50 types of sensors with our 4G Multi-network SIMs, all fitted into the frames of each bike during their production.

The SIMs came in activation-ready mode, so our partner could test them with a small amount of free data, after which they’d go dormant until the bikes were ready.

Then we used unsteered Multi-network 4G connectivity to keep the bikes connected wherever their riders went—whether that was their commute to work, a ride through the park, or a tour of the city.

The result

With the 4,000 bikes providing a constant stream of locational data on air quality and traffic congestion, Birmingham City Council can make informed infrastructure decisions—such as what routes suffer the most congestion, where to build new roads, where to plant trees, and more.

All while promoting healthier lifestyles, reducing emissions, and creating a safer, less congested city.

And to top it all off, the project helped secure a spot on the Council’s tender for the partner that we supported in the deal.


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