The Internet of Things can help TfL to solve congestion problems, says CIO Steve Townsend

Tfl CIO Townsend explains how the organisation is deploying sensors and Bluetooth beacons to improve its services

Transport for London (TfL) is looking into the Internet of Things (IoT) and working out how best it can use data from a range of new sources to help improve its services, according to the organisation's CIO, Steve Townsend.

Townsend told Computing that the IoT is on TfL's agenda, and that it is up to people like him to understand what it can bring to the organisation.

"We are looking at data from IoT and how it could mean we work differently in London; we're looking at how data can maximise every inch of tarmac in London, how we can solve congestion problems, how can we maintain our fleets of vehicles better, how can we use digital monitoring to do maintenance in a more efficient way to maximise our rolling stock, whether it be DLR or Underground or trams, and how we can utilise our internal data from IoT," he said.

Townsend explained that the organisation is increasingly looking at how it could deploy sensors to capture data on passenger behaviour.

"We are increasingly thinking about how we're deploying [sensors] and where we are deploying them; we are considering carefully about putting sensors on everything as there is a cost and there has to be a business case of deploying them," he said.

But TfL does have a number of trials in areas where it believes it makes sense to deploy sensors.

"So we've put sensors on some lifts and escalators so you can predict when they're going to [malfunction], and use them for proactive maintenance," Townsend said.

The organisation is also deploying Bluetooth beacons in congested areas of London to work out where TfL's hotspots are, and it is also using Wi-Fi data to work out where people are at different times of the day.

But according to Townsend, the main area where sensors could be useful is on new trains. He said that TfL would be making sure that new Underground trains and Crossrail and Crossrail 2 trains will all be fully equipped with on-board sensors that can generate all sorts of data.

Townsend emphasises that all of the data collected is anonymised - so TfL wouldn't know that a specific person got off the tube to go to Barclays Bank in the morning.

"That's not the intention; we're looking at how groups of people move around to improve the way TfL predicts journey plans, and inform people of where congestion is," he said.

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