Smart city project in Staffordshire recreates classic Heineken ad
Published on 24th Dec 2015
A new smart city platform could help co-ordinate roadworks, reducing disruption and inconvenience for local road users.
Infrastructure support provider Amey said recently that the project recreates one of the classic ‘Heineken moments’ from the brewer’s iconic “how refreshing…” TV adverts of the 1990s.
The advert featured a team of road workers in a hole dug in a busy street, with utility companies and contractors arranging to co-ordinate their work.
Amey and Staffordshire County Council have received funding from the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK, for the project which combines the company’s programme of works with planning information from utility providers and telecoms operators.
Over a period of 18 months the partners will design, prototype, develop and trial a new spatial planning service across Staffordshire using a smart city platform developed by CSC.
According to Amey, the technology allows the analysis of a diverse set of data sources including future plans and maintenance information, presenting the results on a map to allow planners to see the context in which the works will be carried out. The platform will also highlight where there might be opportunities for co-ordinated works, allowing planners to scale the number of joint works beyond what can be achieved manually today.
The main aim of ‘Project Heineken’ is to promote new ways of working to cut the cost of delivering core city services, reduce the impact on the environment and the local economy, and reduce disruption and inconvenience for citizens.
Rick Robinson, IT director, Smart Data and Technology at Amey, said: “By combining cross-industry collaborative working with smart technology we can truly revolutionise the way works are programmed across the infrastructure network. Maintaining the physical highways network hasn’t changed much over the last decade, however our ability to access analytics and data is allowing us to profoundly change the services we deliver, providing economic, environmental and social benefits to our clients and end users.”
