Pioneering project on urban and rural highways is part of £4.4m ADEPT Live Labs programme to evaluate the true value of data insights
CC2.0:Image by John Fielding, adapted.
Cambridge, UK 28th April 2020: Telensa, the world leader in smart street lighting and smart city technology, today announced that it has been selected by Suffolk County Council to deploy 100 sensors on its smart street lighting infrastructure. The sensors include monitoring of traffic, road condition and air quality metrics. The deployment started in early January.
This is an ADEPT Live Labs programme, a two-year project funded by the Department for Transport that will run until Spring 2021. The University of Suffolk will evaluate the societal and financial benefits of the data collected, enabling the Council to make informed decisions about which ones to introduce at large scale.
The project uses Telensa’s Urban IQ, an open solution enabling cities to choose their preferred sensors, use multiple networks to connect them, and to visualise all data collected in one place. An important element in the solution is the Microsoft Azure IoT Central platform, providing cloud connectivity, device and data management. The sensors connected include traffic (Tag Master), wind (GILL), road temperature (Vaisala), air quality (Aeroqual) and waste (FarSite).
Suffolk County Council has a long track record of introducing smart technologies with Telensa. All 65,000 of its streetlights are wirelessly controlled, saving over £1m per year. More recently Suffolk pioneered the use of traffic-adaptive lighting to further reduce energy costs and CO2 emissions from its highway lighting.
“We’re committed to delivering a better road network and we know that the right smart technologies will play a crucial role.” said Richard Webster, Street Lighting Manager at Suffolk County Council & Suffolk Highways. “We’re delighted to be working with long-term partner Telensa as we create a sustainable smart places strategy that can adapt to the County’s evolving urban and rural needs.”
“Suffolk continues to take a refreshing value-driven approach to the introduction of smart technologies, and we are excited to expand our long-standing relationship in the Live Labs project,” said Will Gibson, Chief Commercial Officer & Founder of Telensa. “This is yet more evidence that connected street lighting is the natural and most cost-effective foundation for smart highways technologies.”
About Telensa
Telensa makes wireless smart city applications, helping cities around the world save energy, work smarter and deliver more joined-up services for their citizens. Telensa PLANet is the world’s most deployed smart streetlight solution, with a footprint of 1.8 million lights. Urban IQ builds on the compelling business case for smart street lighting to provide cities and utilities with an open, low-cost platform to add multiple sensor applications. Working with Microsoft and Samsung in the Urban Data Project, Telensa is helping cities to build future-proof operations driven by data intelligence, trust and transparency. Telensa is based in Cambridge in the UK, with regional operations in the USA and Australia. (www.telensa.com)
About ADEPT
The Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning & Transport (ADEPT) brings together directors from local authorities with local enterprise, sub-national transport bodies and corporate partners. The advances made in digital technology have transformed how people live and work for now and the future. ADEPT is at the forefront of this rapid change: supporting communities, business and innovation in their areas by creating the SMART Places Live Labs Programme, a two-year programme examining the opportunities and challenges facing the adoption of digital technology across the local highway network. The programme is backed by £22.9m funding from the Department of Transport, Suffolk County Council is one of nine local authorities and their partners working across eight innovative projects. (www.adeptnet.org.uk)
Media Contact
media@telensa.com