Nova International, organisers of the Bupa Great North Run and other UK and overseas Great Run events, has helped manage location and safety of personnel during the recent Bupa Great North Run by using a lone worker device application with the company’s online tracking application.
Designed for use on a Blackberry smart-phone, Identicom Mobile enabled Nova International to locate key members of staff, in near-real time, which helped the company with planning, communication and the co-ordination of other members of staff on race day. Nova International used a total of six Identicom Mobiles to track the last four baggage buses and the two outriders who led the on course cavalcade pre-event. Monitoring the buses and outriders was undertaken from the race’s central headquarters.
“The Identicom mobile application easily configured with our Blackberry devices and was easy to operate”, said Charlie Mussett, Senior Operations Manager at Nova International. “They enabled us to view, in real-time, the progress of the outriders and helped us track the last baggage buses, thereby assuring us they would safely reach the finish of the race in good time to meet competitors.”
Although Nova International, primarily used Connexion2’s Identicom mobile for them to view the real-time location of its personnel, the technology has been devised for companies to protect staff who work alone infrequently. Providing much of the functionality available on the Identicom lone worker device (LWD) but on a Blackberry smartphone, Identicom mobile is compliant with Section 5.2.1 of BS8484 and is installed on a Blackberry through an application download. This enables a user to obtain the necessary help if they become a victim of verbal abuse; attack or they feel their safety could be compromised.
As well as integrating with the Online Tracking Application Identicom Mobile is also available as a stand-alone product. The Online Tracking Application allows a lone worker to benefit from improved safety and their manager to better facilitate operations through the provision of detailed location data, the makers say. The online tracking application allows for the creation of definable Geo-fences, the plotting of a users ‘breadcrumb’ trail of movement and direction, and the facility to view a user’s location at ‘street view’ level.
