Increasing numbers choose to live in densely populated areas, which demands high standards of the infrastructure we all depend on for transportation, work, social care and leisure. Our society is therefore provided with a great deal of technology to make everyday life easier, but managing all these functions is a complicated business, and the result is sometimes the opposite. Cities that seek to be smart take control by automating operations monitoring with the aid of the Internet of Things while also receiving fault reports from their residents.
Ellinor Andersson, business developer at Infracontrol, says that Infracontrol Online provides great benefits to the approximately 130 connected customers:
“There is a great need among public infrastructure owners to gain a better overview and control in order to ensure safe, reliable infrastructure in their communities. Our service means they have full control as fault reports from users and alarms from technical installations are concentrated to a single point. With efficient case allocation and monitoring, the necessary measures can be implemented and their quality assured quickly.
The Internet of Things means new possibilities
Infracontrol Online was launched in 2003 and much has happened since then:
“We now have around 130 customers that make use of the service,” says Ellinor Andersson. The number of connected technical devices is currently around 2,000 and more are added all the time.”
The Internet of things (IoT) will provide even better overview and control capabilities. Developments are proceeding apace, according to Johan Höglund, Infracontrol CEO, but so are the challenges:
“IoT units and communication solutions are provided by many different suppliers and comprise different technologies with a variety of functions and architectures. What’s more, the technical installations have many different owners and users and overall responsibility is spread across many different players.”
There is thus a great need for a universal, independent platform to which all kinds of technical systems can be connected and in which every medium of communication can be used.
“It’s also important that this kind of platform be adapted for practical use in real situations, with sensible applications designed on the basis of the user’s needs and circumstances. We truly succeeded in this regard when we developed Infracontrol online,” says Johan Höglund.
The observations of residents are important
But IoT is not able to meet every need according to Johan Höglund. There are many functions in society’s infrastructure that cannot be monitored by technical systems, and there is also a need to capture more general observations.
“Today’s residents demand quality in a city’s infrastructure. Infracontrol Online gives everybody the opportunity to report faults and shortcomings by taking a photo of the problem, providing its location and describing it. The service then makes sure the information is sent to the person responsible and that the case is monitored. It’s what we call everyday democracy,” says Johan Höglund.
Ellinor Andersson, who is responsible for Infracontrol Community, considers this ability to be equally as important as IoT for municipalities that want to get smart in real terms:
“In addition to receiving important information about things that aren’t working, we also create a positive, constructive collaboration with our residents.”
Infracontrol Online is a unique cloud service, specially developed for society’s infrastructure and it is the market leader when it comes to combining information from technical systems and residents.
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