CityVerve is a smart cities Internet of Things (IoT) demonstrator project which aims to make Manchester a healthier and more efficient city for its citizens. There are 4 themes within CityVerve; Health and Social Care, Travel and Transport, Energy and the Environment, Culture and the Public Realm. BeeActive is one of the Health and Social Care projects which aims to help people achieve their daily walking goals with the help of behaviour change ‘nudges’ whilst at the same time discovering new things about the city of Manchester.
People will be invited to download the free BeeActive app to their smartphone. The app will ask users to create an account and to set a personal daily steps goal. The app will then provide some simple ‘nudges’ such as asking people to accept or decline a ‘mission’ to go for a walk at lunchtime. Later on into the autumn months, once all of the technology along Oxford Road has been set up, BeeActive will be able to provide more personal ‘nudges’. For example, if someone usually takes the bus to work along Oxford Road, the app will detect the location when someone is a few stops away from their usual bus stop and it will ‘nudge’ them to get off the bus and walk to work because it is a clear dry day, but traffic is busy up ahead and it will be quicker to walk than to stay on the bus, also getting you closer to your daily steps goal. This will demonstrate how IoT works by pulling information about location, the weather, traffic and transport together to provide personalised ‘nudges’ to change behaviour.