RFIP Ltd have developed the Walker Tracking Unit for Intelligent Health and their Beat the Street program.
The Walker Tracking Unit is a ruggedized NFC system which incorporates RFID, GPRS, WiFi and GPS functionality in a single battery powered unit. It can be easily mounted on existing street furniture and withstands the elements.
Here is how it works:
- The system has the ability to track users walking along a designated route where WTUs are installed
- WTUs are mounted onto existing street furniture
- Users are issued with NFC cards or fobs
- Users swipe their cards or fobs at points along the way
- The swipe information is automatically sent to a remote database
- Users can access their personal walk information via a web application.
Based on this, Intelligent Health have developed ‘Beat the Street’ which is a real life walking, cycling and running game for a whole community. The challenge is funded by Councils across the country, and even abroad, to promote healthier lifestyles and to reduce congestion and car usage.
People score points and win prizes by walking, cycling or running from point to point and tapping a registered and activated Beat the Street RFID card or key fob on sensors (the RFIP Ltd Walker Tracking Units or ‘Beat Boxes’). These are placed on lamp posts across the dedicated routes where the game is being played.
Leaderboards are created online to connect the community and to make the game more fun and challenging.
Councils have been getting really creative to get their communities moving. Reading’s target for 2015 was to travel as a town for eight weeks into space. A total of 23,992 people from Reading, Burghfield, Mortimer, Pangbourne and Theale walked and cycled 306,599 miles when they took part in the Beat the Street challenge.
The RFIP Blog 