amowlam's blog

Councils using iBeacons for proximity-based messaging

amowlam — Tue, 10 Jun 2014 01:40:20 +0000

Background

One of the primary challenges of local government service delivery is getting the required information into the right hands – those that want and can use it. As an example, when Wyndham Council runs a large event such as a festival, it is very difficult to convey important messages such as an upcoming performance details, detour/directional information, special features and shows, lost children/property etc. Modern Technologies, particularly social media such as Twitter and Facebook are great at blanket dispersal of information, but they don't target attendees/participants specifically. A new technology recently released by Apple with iOS7, known as iBeacons which uses BlueTooth technology, solves this problem by delivering messages to users based on their location.

In a trial application of iBeacons, Wyndham City Council built a scalable solution that could be managed by non-technical staff. Figure 1 presents the overall solution.

Figure 1: A proximity-based Information Delivery System

There are three components to the solution:

Unique beacon – a hardware device with a unique ID that recognises nearby mobile devices. These beacons are all-weather devices, can be easily transported between locations, and can be grouped with other beacons.
Web-based management console – computer used by Wyndham City for the customisation of messages, the management of beacons, and the handling of web services for information transfer.
Mobile application – downloaded by users that can display notifications, messages, advertisements and other related information. The application is triggered when the user enters a pre-defined proximity to one of the beacons. When this occurs, the messages being managed by the console will be sent to the device via web services.

Since the beacons are relatively cheap and can be either fixed or mobilised by council staff with access to the web-management console, the beacons can be moved on a project-by-project basis. The messages that are sent to mobile devices can also be linked to multiple beacons. For example, three beacons could be used at a single or multiple local parks to distribute the same message on rabbit baiting or upcoming vegetation work. The location of the beacons and the content of the messages can then be changed on an ongoing basis to stay up-to-date with council communication priorities.

The general public, who download the platform independent mobile app, receive the customised messages from council on their mobile device when they are near the beacons. A user can be within range of none, one or multiple beacons and can prioritise the type of messages they receive (e.g. related to upcoming events, tourist information etc.), and the messaging system will send only the requested information and only once, so as to prevent spam.

Pilot Project

To trial the use of iBeacons for Proximity-Based Messaging, Wyndham City constructed a pilot project to gather qualitative data regarding the customer experience. Staff identified "Your Rates Showcase" as a suitable event. This event was conducted indoors, in a relatively small space, with numerous available client devices and simple messaging requirements. For this project Wyndham utilised Bluecats beacons, which use proprietary encryption, replaceable AA batteries and over-the-air remote management. The availability of an software development kit with the beacon also allowed Council to integrate beacon activity with our existing mobile apps.

Figure 2: iWyndham App used at the Rates Showcase

A purpose built mobile application called iWyndham was used for the event. During the event a running sheet of messages was used, which alerted users of the different events at the showcase and other important information. For this event each beacon was linked to the same message.

6:50pm	Welcome to the Wyndham Your Rates Showcase
6:58pm	Wyndham City Councillors will consider the draft Budget & City Plan from 7pm
7:20pm	Remember to have your say on the draft Budget and City Plan
7:35pm	Visit the Apps and Maps stand for a virtual look at the City
7:50pm	Sick of traffic congestion? Check out the Advocacy stand
8:05pm	Visit the Major Projects stand for updates on projects that will change the City
8:20pm	If you've been confused about recycling, visit Environment and Waste Services
8:30pm	Find the closest Council services! Visit the Communications stand
8:40pm	Make sure you have registered to win the iPad – prize drawn in 5 minutes
8:55pm	Thanks for visiting the Your Rates Showcase – www.wyndham.vic.gov.au

There were some problems encountered during the pilot. The beacons were only compatible with the latest mobile operating systems which meant that many users with older phones could not receive the messages. Also, notifications proved temperamental when the mobile device was stationary. Despite these issues the pilot project was deemed to be a success. Some learnings from the pilot include the need to integrate iBeacon solutions with corporate applications, and the value of user data such as visitors/visitation times for future event planning.

Future Work

The use of iBeacons in proximity messaging is growing rapidly. Some examples of early adopters include Virgin Atlantic, who are planning to use iBeacons at Heathrow Airport, Major League Baseball (MLB), who are using the technology at sports stadiums, and Antwerp Museum, who are using iBeacons at The Rubens House. Figure 3 below maps the current distribution of beacons globally.

Figure 3. Global map of iBeacons

Further development of the mobile app could see the integration of beacon technology and social media (Facebook accounts, Twitter profiles and Instagram pages). For example, if a beacon was located in the Werribee Plains, users could upload photos of the endangered Eastern Barred Bandicoot taken from a specific area to their social media page, which would then be viewable for other users who enter the area. Another potential application includes feeding information to staff about attendance and the movement of people at public events, which could be used to assist crowd control and event monitoring.

Wyndham City hopes to encourage other government agencies to adopt this technology and is open to collaboration.

Adam Mowlam is the Coordinator System Development & Analysis at Wyndham City Council. His responsibilities include building and managing the enterprise GIS, in-house desktop, web and mobile application development, spatial data management and policy development. He is particularly interested in crowd-sourced applications and using innovative solutions to improve business operations.

Back to the Town Crier

Enhancing organisational capacity through mobile apps

amowlam — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 01:59:36 +0000

The Wyndham City Mobile Computing Strategy featured two key recommendations: firstly, the organisation-wide deployment of smartphones and tablet devices; and secondly, the need to build a range of mobile applications to expedite business operations by removing the requirements of staff to manually track, manage and re-enter data.

There are literally dozens of council services and functions, often mandated by the three levels of government, that can be improved through mobile computation. Indeed, the long list of services was a primary reason in Council deciding that each mobile application would be planned, designed, developed and managed entirely by internal council staff. To support the development of multiple applications, staff focused on a modular design and determined the following mandatory requirements:

Utilisation of standard smartphone gestures, location services/map displays, integrated camera and image handling operations, offline inspections and the use of core data, real-time cross-device data access, and the augmentation of feature overlays such as property boundaries that have custom clickablility.
A series of web services responsible for data transfer and basic data management. The actual data transferred to and fro is dependent on the operation, but the procedure is consistent across applications.
Web consumers who undertake various functions and operations such as defining the nearest property, coordinate conversion, create geometries for display in internal mapping applications.
Seamless integration of the inspection data with corporate applications such as GIS, asset management, and property/rates.

The modular development was required to address the current business operational needs covering asset inspections, vacant lot inspections, unregistered animal inspections and pool barrier audits. During the first nine months, the small team has successfully delivered seven applications.

The first application built by staff, called Field Inspect, won the Asset Management Category at the 2013 National Local Government Awards. Field Inspect is used to perform mandatory inspections of Council’s field assets, including road pavements, footpaths, street signs and street furniture. The application not only offers a reduction in inspection time frames, but the greater accessibility by staff improves the ability of Council to deliver informed and strategic asset maintenance and expediently assess critical problems. Both these aspects play a critical role in improving the image of the City and allow Council staff to actively achieve one of our core values: community focus. By identifying issues with assets early and regularly, the optimal schedule of proposed maintenance and renewal can be achieved by minimising the asset life cycle costs.

To manage the inspection of properties with unregistered cats and dogs an application called Animal Inspect was built. The system divides the council into zones to allow multiple staff to simultaneously undertake inspections of properties that may or may not have unregistered animals. Field staff record the presence (or lack thereof) of animals, which is then integrated with the corporate system for further processing. This application has a range of benefits including improved animal/owner welfare, reduction of the impact of domestic animals on nature reserves, and assistance with overall animal management.

The Tree Inspect application was built to assist with the management of Council’s significant tree inventory. Tree Inspect is used to identify tree assets, locate proposed plantings, convert proposed trees to existing assets, and undertake tree inspections. The initial map shows existing trees and proposed plantings, which are clustered should point congestion occur. The application and associated processing allows the lifecycle of tree management to be handled from the proposed planting to inspection (and if necessary removal) of a Council tree asset.

The Vacant Land application is used to assist legislative services staff to perform mandatory inspections of vacant land. This application ensures the public are complying with Council’s policy on maintaining vacant land to reduce vegetation and litter. Wyndham City has approximately 6,000 properties without a dwelling. This application reduced the time to undertake the audit cycle, previously done using manual methods, from ten to three weeks, whilst also offering numerous other benefits such as automatically associated inspection photos and seamlessly integrating with electronic corporate solutions and reporting techniques.

The development of mobile applications in-house has produced some outstanding results. The solutions are simple, robust, user-friendly and integrated. Furthermore, the numbers indicate greatly reduced inspection times in terms of both determining the subject location and entering the inspection details. However, there have been a number of lessons learnt, especially with projects involving small teams. For purpose-built applications, which can only be used by a small number of qualified staff, project planning and staff availability for application testing and usage can be limited.

The next stage will be the development of public-facing applications, with the first, WynConnect, expected to be released in early 2014. This application will use location-based services to provide a property report giving the user information on waste collection days, planning information, and the nearest schools and community facilities.