The old saying points out that “knowledge is power”. We would add that knowledge is also trust.
As the Smart City concept grows in public consciousness and people come to know what it actually means for them – less time at traffic lights and lower energy bills for example – they will sign up for it and give their data in return.
This point is very much understood here at Briteyellow, where we undertook research at centre:mk, a large regional shopping centre in Milton Keynes in the UK.
Bettina Tratz-Ryan, research vice president for Smart City and Smart ecosystems at Gartner, told IT Pro that citizens are more likely to adopt smart technologies and allow their data to be used within smart city projects if plans are explained and contextualised from the start.
“If [people] understand and see the value, they’re more likely to download and submit their data to Smart City applications,” she said.
Residents, visitors, tourists and business people were given the company’s BriteLocate3D app on their smartphones and asked for their responses.
BriteLocate3D is Briteyellow’s patent pending 3D cloud indoor positioning technology which provides class-leading location accuracy indoors.
One of the questions asked in the survey was: “How likely would you be willing to use the app for information about relevant offers and discounts?”
Respondents were asked to grade their responses from one to 10, where one was the least likely and 10 was most likely. None of the respondents gave a score below 6.
Two standout issues emerged.
Firstly, respondents saw the app as much better than 2D maps as a way of moving around and finding stores.
In addition to this, respondents saw the app as a great way of receiving offers from retail outlets.
We have found that BriteLocate3D’s case is easy to understand and that people value what it can do.
Gartner predicts that smart cities in 2016 will use 1.6 billion connected devices, up 39 per cent from 2015, and this is forecast to reach 20.8 billion by 2020.
As more consumers use the BriteLocate3D app to navigate around venues with virtual reality and augmented reality, the amount of data available to facilities management will increase.
Our powerful 3D cloud dashboard enables operators to visualise individual movement such as security staff or create heat maps and perform analytics.
So for us the future is bright…. Briteyellow that is!
For more information about Briteyellow’s products, visit: https://www.briteyellow.com/
Now, contacts Briteyellow here: https://www.briteyellow.com/contact