Functionality

CITiPULSE is more than just a public transport kiosk, it is a smart city hub. The CITiPULSE team have developed a smart and compact interactive service that adds value to the connected city environment. The functionality of CITiPULSE is geared towards improving the urban experience for both visitors and regular transit users.

The value that the CITiPULSE smart city hub provides is the simplicity of bringing together services to federate out IoT solutions. The various services CITiPULSE could support include: smart street lighting; smart monitoring of water meters; stormwater drain levels; road sensors; rubbish bin loads; vehicle, cycle and pedestrian counting; environmental sensors; smart parking and integration with active modes of transport solutions like EVs, car and bike share. Implementing the CITiPULSE technology can add immense value to the liveability of our cities, but restricted by the apparent complexity required in bringing the disparate services together. To ensure the cost of operating and managing sensors are kept to a minimum there is a need to operate from a hub and backhaul communications. CITiPULSE is that hub, however it is also much more!

CITiPULSE is an interactive outdoor platform. The stretched high bright screen emulates a smartphone interface but uses a tile UI to ensure the screen real estate fits a person standing at the unit. The app environment is geared to what a customer might want as against what we, the designers, might think is best. In simple terms CITiPULSE is an open app environment allowing the council to bring their customers into the app ecosystem and surface material specific to a city.

Beside the screen CITiPULSE has a card reader for mobile/payment top up of transport cards or payment services to whatever a council or operator would like to make available. Examples could include parking, EV charging, city event tickets, bookings etc. The point being, CITiPULSE is customisable and can be a smart hub for any manner of services.

One of the criteria for the design of CITiPULSE was to minimise street clutter and to create a unit that can be retrofitted to existing and new infrastructure. The initial thought being street light poles where there is an increasing need to bring communications to support smart LED lighting solutions. The CITiPULSE unit is designed to be used from a standing position, however to ensure that wheelchair users can access the interface there is a tile that adjusts the interface to the bottom of the screen.

CITiPULSE has been designed to be easily transportable, easy to set up and easy to maintain. The thin profile of the casing allows the unit to be fitted throughout a city without compromising footpaths or public spaces.