LoRaWAN being leveraged for smart transportation
The City of Montreal is turning to the Internet of Things (IoT) to digitalise its public transport, with the help of LoRaWAN networks. Working with Semtech and X-TELIA, a Montreal-based LoRaWAN network operator, the city will benefit from a smart city solution to digitalise bus shelters throughout the area.
X-TELIA installed LoRa-based displays showing the next departing bus times in shelters throughout the city. The solar-powered displays operate on the public LoRaWAN network, and it is expected in the future that the displays will show bus delays in real-time.
This project is among the first in Canada to use LoRa technology for smart transit including tracking and scheduling. In May 2018, the city of Toronto partnered with companies such as Microsoft, Intel and others to pilot its smart city initiative, UPPlife: Toronto. This particular program focused on artificial intelligence and analytics in public sector services such as waste deposal.
“LoRa Technology for smart transit can save commuters time and help the city run more efficiently,” explains Vivek Mohan, director of IoT, Semtech. “X-TELIA’s LoRa-based solution is an excellent example for future system integrators as the sensors are easy to install, run on a fraction of the power of current solutions and provide real-time tracking even in densely crowded urban areas.
“When these solutions are combined with other smart city technologies, including smart parking and waste management, the future of a city is transformed to create a smarter planet.”
Back in June 2017, Actility and IoTCAN announced they were going to deploy a nationwide network in Canada. The CEO of Actility spoke of how LoRa was “the best communication solution for industrial IoT applications.”
LoRaWAN is a low power wide area network (LPWAN) specification intended for wireless battery operated things in a regional, national or global network. According to the LoRa Alliance, LoRaWAN targets key requirements of the internet of things (IoT) such as secure bi-directional communication, mobility and localization services.
In the LoRaWAN network architecture, gateways are connected to the network server via standard IP connections while end-devices use single-hop wireless communication to one or many gateways. All end-point communication is generally bi-directional, but also supports operation such as multicast, enabling software upgrades over the air or other mass distribution messages to reduce the on-air communication time.
