Internet of Things pilots to improve quality of life in London neighborhoods

What are “use cases”? Use cases are trials or pilots that have been deployed to address a specific problem, challenge or opportunity. They are typically run for a period of 12 months and will look to utilise the “Internet Of Things” (IoT) as a technology to gather new data in order to support smarter outcomes and insights.

Each use case will have a unique challenge it is trying to resolve and may be deployed across multiple council services and even more than one London borough.

Use cases have been designed with the challenge (outcome) as the starting point – this is so that less emphasis is placed on the technology than on the benefits of the solution. The South London Partnership (SLP) are trialling a range of IoT based solutions across Croydon, Kingston, Merton, Richmond and Sutton all with the aim to learn about how the technology can be adopted for Local Authorities in the future.

The data obtained from the use cases may then feed into decisions or recommendations, which lead to improved economic growth, support local businesses or help people live better, healthier, independent lives for longer.

How are they helping residents and businesses? Each use case is expected to support the generation of positive outcomes for residents and local businesses, or help the Council to operate in a more efficient way.

These challenges may have existed before COVID, but some will be a new issue that COVID has created. Data in itself is of limited benefit but when it’s correctly interpreted it can help target interventions.

Examples of these are to identify declining activity within vulnerable residents, fuel poverty, tackling the continuous issue of fly-tipping and flooding; and gaining insights into the quietest times for shopping to help our more vulnerable residents feel safer when going out.