WRD Systems lands key role in £24 million government project

CLACTON-ON-SEA, U.K. - Feb. 25, 2015 - PRLog -- WRD Systems lands key role in £24 million government project

This summer will see the launch of the UK’s largest government backed cycling project. “Big Birmingham Bikes” will see Birmingham city council giving away some 5000 bikes to members of the public as part of their initiative to promote cycling as part of a healthy lifestyle and sustainable form of transport.

Backed by Sport UK and Cycling England along with £17 million from the department of transport the scheme aims to bring a cycling revolution to Birmingham.

This week Birmingham City Council announced that WRD Systems has been contracted to provide tracking and related data for its new fleet of bikes. Using WRD’s intelligent Asset Management^™ platform the project’s managers will be able to gather a wide range of location-based data that they believe will form an invaluable part of the project.

Project Manager John Carrigan says.

“We decided to work with WRD after seeing not only how much information their system can gather but how useful it is in a number of areas"

The platform will allow us to monitor a really surprising amount of data; from individual usage to amount of carbon offset as well as being able to monitor potential choke points along commonly used routes.

One of the most important things we will be doing with the platform is generating real time data that can directly impact city planning. When we know exactly what routes are being used by our cyclists we can determine exactly where new cycle paths need to be installed.

The final factor that really swung the decision for us was that WRD is one of the few companies that manufactures a high quality product within the UK and has an excellent reputation for working with local communities”

Outside of the privately funded bike hire scheme in London, Big Birmingham Bikes is expected to be the largest scheme of its kind in the UK and certainly the first time that real time data has played a role in a city infrastructure planning.

WRD Systems Managing Director Andy White said today.

“We are obviously delighted to be working with Birmingham City Council on this project"

Intelligent Asset Management^™ is a platform we have been working on for a number of years now. Our aim has always been to develop the most flexible solution to not only generate GPS and related data but also provide software that presents the data in the most usable format for our customers.

One of the big challenges of this project has been producing a device that needs no maintenance for two years, can be recharged during use and remain completely hidden. Our engineers have worked on the solution for several months now we are pleased with the resulting high capability and low cost solution.

The device WRD will deploy for this project utilizes a hub dynamo for recharging, meaning the device will never need to be taken off of the bike to be recharged and requires no maintenance. The most impressive part of the device is that the team have managed to fit the entire solution inside of the bike frame, meaning no bulky equipment attached to the frame and nothing to spoil the users enjoyment of their new bikes as well as adding an extra layer of security.”

Big Birmingham Bikes will launch to the public this summer and Birmingham city council have already started taking applications from members of the public interested in joining the scheme.

Founded just five years ago on a tiny budget WRD Systems has quickly found its place in the global technology market. Our aim is to bring together talent from a broad spectrum of specialties to develop exciting new products and work closely with our partners around the world.

For Further information on WRD Systems please see www.wrdsystems.co.uk or email info@wrdsystems.co.uk