The town of Spencer in Massachusetts is to monitor road conditions and improve public safety with local company Cimcon’s NearSky platform. This streetlight conversion will expand to include additional smart city elements with the goal of brighter and safer streets.
 
Spencer is a town of approximately 12,000 people. It is planning to add road condition monitoring as part of its recent LED streetlight conversion project. Town officials are undertaking this initiative to improve driver safety, meet state environmental guidelines, and reduce costs associated with ineffective road monitoring and maintenance.
 
Spencer, originally an agricultural and mill community, has an aging population for whom road safety is a priority, especially during the winter months. Using the funds remaining from a grant and incentives received from the Massachusetts Area Planning Council (MAPC) and National Grid, respectively, to convert their streetlights, the town selected Cimcon’s NearSky smart city platform with road condition monitoring application to improve public safety.
 
“We try hard to recognise and be responsive to the needs of the community,” said Bill Krukowski, superintendent of Spencer’s highway department. “Our collaboration with Cimcon started with an LED lighting conversion. We had funds available in our project budget and grants from the state and decided to use them to improve the safety of our streets.”
 
At the start of the project, the town identified four areas that experience the first occurrences of freezing during inclement weather. Two areas are along a causeway that runs beside the Stiles Reservoir and Cranberry Meadow Pond, and the other two are in the northern section of the town, where the elevation is higher and the temperature is typically five degrees lower than the town centre.
 
The town will monitor two additional areas for comparison purposes. Real-time data from road temperature sensors will be relayed back to the town’s highway department via NearSky so that preventive measures may be taken.
 
The data obtained from the StreetVibe software will allow the town to monitor the road temperature and treat surfaces before hazardous road conditions can occur. Not only will this make the roads safer, but will also allow the town to use less road salt, thereby helping it to achieve its high phosphorus reduction goals as part of its participation in the National Pollution Discharge Elimination Programme.
 
The implementation of the platform should also have a positive impact on the town’s finances. Krukowski estimates that the platform will pay for itself within four years through savings on road salt and reduced equipment wear and tear. The system is expected to be fully deployed this month.
 
“Communities like Spencer are an important part of our customer mix,” said Anil Agrawal, Cimcon’s CEO. “They often come to us with a singular focus, usually lighting, but quickly see the additional possibilities that our NearSky smart city platform can provide. We are very pleased to be working with the town of Spencer to help them in their efforts to improve public safety.”
 
With a heritage of over 25 years in industrial automation and outdoor wireless applications, Cimcon provides smart city technology to global cities and utilities. The company provides scalable, intelligent wireless outdoor lighting management for traditional, LED and solar-based street lights, and the company’s smart city platform provides an way to deploy, manage and maintain smart city devices and applications.