Crowd Connected pioneers staff tracking innovation

London – 24 May 2016. Award-winning technology start-up Crowd Connected has further expanded the capabilities of colocator, its ground-breaking location insight platform, with the introduction of a new staff tracking module.

In a world first, colocator’s new software-as-a-service solution enables named individuals to be located in real-time to remarkable accuracy, without requiring installation of beacons or other expensive site-wide hardware. Crucially it works both indoors and outdoors.

How does it work?

By issuing members of staff with Crowd Connected’s low-cost, reusable lanyard-style tags containing an embedded Bluetooth transmitter, operators of stadia, arenas, festivals and city-centres are now able to pinpoint the location of any individuals wearing the lanyards.

The solution extends colocator’s underlying patent-pending technology which captures location data from mobile devices in the environment – in essence phones act as a mobile sensor network to localise those persons wearing the tags.

Unlike other solutions, colocator is not reliant on a single underlying location technology (such as GPS or Beacons).

Benefits of the service

This staff tracking feature is easy to configure via an intuitive web console. It delivers a number of benefits out-of-the-box to operators, including:

• Accuracy to sub five metres
• Real-time monitoring via maps and dashboard visualisations
• Immediate replay of precise positions for any time or incident
• Facility to message individuals/groups (in-app or SMS) based on current or historic location
• Storage of trajectory histories enabling rich post-event analytics
• Features in development include searching and grouping

Positive Feedback
 
Commenting on the new feature release, James Cobb, CEO of Crowd Connected said: “We are passionate about using our unrivalled real-time digital location insight to enhance and personalise real-world services. Once again we’ve been working closely with our clients to extend the functionality of our platform and the staff tracking module is a major new feature release which illustrates this commitment.

“We recently piloted staff tracking at a major US event and were delighted with the feedback we received.
 
“There are benefits in tracking many different staff groups, but particularly in relation to security personnel at a live event. For example, it provides controllers and dispatchers with real-time visibility of security staff locations to help determine the best response to incidents.”
 
The trailblazing new feature has application not just to staff but also to other groups of people, and beyond that even to tracking assets in transit – such as vehicles on event sites.
 
Cobb added: “Integrating our technology into wristbands is something we are actively looking at. For the first time that would enable the accurate tracking of groups like VIPs or even an event’s entire attendees – seamlessly and at low cost.  
 
“We’re already engaged in some exciting discussions with interested parties as to how our technology can be applied for some really interesting use cases.”

About colocator
Crowd Connected's colocator is a ‘location as a service’ platform that is powering a new generation of location insight services. Intelligently combining multiple positioning techniques, colocator harvests, stores and analyses aggregated location data using signals from mobile phones, wearable devices or other connected hardware to unrivalled accuracy, delivering a completely cross-platform, ‘works anywhere’ solution. By aggregating location data, the colocator platform provides real-time actionable information including predictive analytics, as well as rich spatio-temporal datasets for post-processing.

About Crowd Connected
Crowd Connected is pioneering the next generation of location intelligence. Founded in 2013 and based in Guildford, UK, the company licenses its colocator software platform to multiple clients including the largest global live event promoters such as AEG-Goldenvoice and Live Nation.

Part of the inaugural showcase at the Digital Catapult in London, featuring some of the most innovative new uses of data in the UK's digital economy, the company won three awards at the 2015 Event Technology awards for its ground-breaking technology: Best New Technology Start-up, Best Use of Technology for Event Analytics, Data Collection & Insight, and Best use of Event Technology at a Festival.