Crowd Control Button

Anyone who organizes a large event wants to offer maximum safety and prevent people from getting into trouble due to the crowds. Vodafone Business and partner Spinnov proved at the mega-busy Four Days Marches in Nijmegen that the use of IoT and network slicing can lead to a safe event.
Crowd control in practice.

Industry: Smart Industry
Technology: PCB Design, Network Slicing

The largest freely accessible event in the Netherlands: the Four Days Marches in Nijmegen. This year, the event was the setting for an important test for Vodafone Business in collaboration with partner Spinnov, with the question: how can IoT and network slicing contribute to safety? Watch the video for the answer.

Book a meeting

More about Vodafone Business

Client and Goals

The management of the Four Days Marches, security guards, emergency services and the police wanted to test the crowd control technology of Vodafone Business and partner Spinnov (now Bestronics Development) in practice. Under very demanding conditions – a million visitors and rapidly rising temperatures – it was important to signal peak crowds at locations in time and prevent unsafe situations from arising. And if the emergency services did have to take action, the network had to enable fast and reliable communication, was the requirement.

Challenges

The test involved two things. The first was signalling peak crowds by using IoT. During the festivities in Nijmegen, security guards went out with a specially developed IoT device – the Crowd Control button – which helped them display the crowd image. With one push of a button, they could send a signal to the police control room. Excessive crowds could be reported via matrix signs, which called on the public to avoid busy places. If necessary, the control room could ask emergency services to intervene and lead people away from the area. Network slicing also played an important role in the test. Vodafone Business made sure that a piece of bandwidth in the network was reserved for communication. In fact, a lane on the digital highway was kept free for this traffic and for communication in case of problems.

Bestronics’s Role

Bestronics Development took on the critical task of designing through the use of cutting-edge technology. In particular, Network Slicing offers the possibility to divide the mobile network into different segments, also called 'slices'. This allows different users to benefit from the required bandwidth simultaneously, regardless of the traffic on the network. This guarantees a stable and fast connection, essential for organisations (such as the Four Days Marches) that require continuous reliable data flows. By dividing into slices, the network capacity of a user is not affected by other users. This means that the required capacity is always available, resulting in optimal network performance under all circumstances. Vodafone Business ensures that the most crucial data traffic is given priority, which is essential for continuity and efficiency.