Taoglas launches analytics platform to track public gatherings

24 Mar 2020

Image: © Zoe/Stock.adobe.com

The Crowd Insights platform monitors and predicts data on public gatherings and social distancing limit breaches at indoor and outdoor venues.

Taoglas has announced a new analytics platform called Crowd Insights, which tracks the movement of people to assist with the urgent public health need for managing crowd sizes and social distancing measures during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Wexford-based IoT firm said that Crowd Insights utilises existing Wi-Fi infrastructure to measure, monitor, predict, alert and notify social distancing limit breaches for indoor and outdoor venues.

It added that the platform aims to help nations, states, cities and health systems around the world as they enforce new regulations that have been introduced to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

Taoglas is already working with an Irish hospital to provide its solution free of charge, and plans to provide the platform to other health systems at cost.

‘We believe this will be vital’

Crowd Insights is based on the ThinkSmarter Analytics solution that was recently acquired by Taoglas. That tech has already been deployed with customers including Three, Vodafone, FIRA Barcelona and Dublin City University.

Ronan Quinlan, co-CEO of Taoglas, said: “To do our part during this time of crisis for world humanity, Taoglas has taken proven technology from our recent acquisition of ThinkSmarter and accelerated development to launch a unique solution to help municipalities, governments, healthcare systems and enterprises to monitor and manage crowds.

“We believe this will be vital in the days and months to come to allow people to move around safely without fear and to get the economy moving again.

“Municipalities and businesses are now required to monitor the density of groups of people in public, to optimise social distancing, to ensure that the virus does not re-establish. With a cost-effective tool to measure, monitor and manage people movement, we’re looking to help expedite getting life and businesses back to normal.”

Numbers, flows and dwell times

The Crowd Insights platform monitors the numbers, flows and dwell times of people in public areas, setting thresholds to alarm authorities if intervention is necessary.

According to Taoglas, the solution can be deployed in a single day, remotely through a cloud management platform. It can be used by healthcare facilities, retail stores, venues, restaurants, airports and cities.

The company said: “No special software is required on the phones or on the Wi-Fi networks to get started and the solution works seamlessly with Meraki, Cisco, Ruckus, Aruba and other Wi-Fi equipment.”

The platform can be configured to set up new monitoring zones as needed or to align with EU privacy and GDPR requirements.

Kelly Earley was a journalist with Silicon Republic

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