Sensing, robots and data —
and no fifteen-year lock-in
Street-level sensing, traffic and mobility hardware, connected lighting, metering and municipal service robots, with a platform that exports its data in open formats. Supplied to municipalities, authorities, utilities and the integrators who serve them.
A city buys for fifteen years, not for a budget cycle
This category is the sensing, robotics and data layer of a city: the hardware on poles, kerbs and vehicles, and the platform that collects what it produces. The buildings and infrastructure themselves are the work of our Development & Smart Housing division — if you are planning a district rather than instrumenting one, start there.
Public buyers work differently to everyone else in this division. Budgets run in years and can change with an election. Procurement is a formal process where decisions are documented and challengeable. And the equipment is expected to still be working, and still supported, long after the people who signed for it have moved on.
So the argument we make is about the decade rather than the demonstration. Open standards and exportable data, because a closed platform is a supplier contract in disguise. A support window stated in writing, because "who fixes this in year eight" is a fair question. Pilots designed and priced so they can actually scale, because the graveyard of city technology is full of successful pilots that stopped at twenty units.
Two things we raise before anyone asks. Environmental sensors drift and need calibration — data a council cannot defend is worse than no data when someone challenges it. And equipment that appears on residents' streets without explanation generates the kind of opposition that ends programmes. Both are cheap to handle at the start and impossible to retrofit.
Why buy city hardware through us
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Open standards, exportable data
Equipment and platforms that hand your data back in formats another supplier can read. Lock-in is a cost you pay later.
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Support window in writing
How long each line is supported and how long spares are available, stated at order rather than assumed.
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Pilots that can scale
Designed so the twenty-unit trial becomes a two-thousand-unit rollout, with the scale price quoted alongside the pilot.
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Tender-ready documentation
Specifications, conformity evidence and compliance detail in the form a procurement team actually has to submit.
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Calibration planned
Sensors drift. The calibration regime is part of the specification, so the data stands up when it is questioned.
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Phased to budget years
Deliveries staged across financial years where procurement requires it, without repricing the whole programme each time.
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Transparency material supplied
What each device collects and why, in plain language you can publish to residents before it appears on their street.
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Consistent across expansions
Same models, firmware and mounting standard in year five as year one, so one maintenance regime covers the estate.
Who deploys it
A sample rather than a limit. Send the district and the question you are trying to answer, and we will tell you which sensing actually answers it — including when existing data would do.
- Municipalities & city councils
- Transport authorities
- Water & energy utilities
- Waste & cleansing services
- Parks & public realm
- Business improvement districts
- New district developments
- Housing authorities
- Ports & airports as districts
- University & hospital campuses
- Tourism & visitor management
- Environmental agencies
- Systems integrators
- Tender & framework suppliers
Six classes we stock and source
Environmental sensing
Air quality, noise, temperature and flood monitoring on street furniture. Cheap to install and only as useful as its calibration regime.
Traffic & mobility
Vehicle and pedestrian counting, junction monitoring, parking occupancy and signal equipment. Anything identifying vehicles needs a lawful basis first.
Lighting & street furniture
Connected lighting, controllers and multi-purpose poles. Usually the easiest first deployment because the power and the mounting already exist.
Utility & waste sensing
Water, energy and bin-level monitoring that turns fixed collection rounds and estimated billing into something measured.
Municipal service robots
Street cleaning, grounds and patrol machines for public spaces, supplied with the supervision arrangements those spaces require.
City platform & integration
Dashboards, data hubs and APIs that bring the classes above into one view — and, critically, let the data out again.
What comes as standard
In every order. Installation on the public highway, permits, traffic management, utility coordination and platform integration are quoted separately — that work belongs to your streets, not to the equipment.
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Devices & mounting hardware
Sensors, controllers and the brackets, enclosures and fixings for the street furniture you actually have.
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Connectivity configured
Radio, cellular or mesh set for the destination's frequency rules and tested before dispatch.
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Platform licence & API access
Licensed at the device count on the order, with data export and interface documentation included rather than sold back to you.
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Calibration certificates
Factory calibration recorded per device where the class requires it, with the re-calibration interval stated.
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Tender documentation pack
Declarations, conformity evidence, environmental ratings and specifications in submittable form.
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Pre-shipment test record
Devices powered, reporting verified, firmware and serial numbers recorded against the asset list before dispatch.
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Asset register
Every device listed with serial, location reference and firmware — what a maintenance team needs on day one and in year eight.
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Public-facing description
Plain-language material describing what each device collects and why, ready to publish before installation begins.
What is fixed and what is chosen per order
City systems are specified around the district, the mounting available and the rules of the destination, so this table describes how each line gets decided. Confirmed values for your order appear on the configuration sheet before production.
- System classes
- Environmental sensing, traffic and mobility, lighting and street furniture, utility and waste sensing, municipal service robots, city platform and integration
- Deployment scale
- Pilot, district or city-wide. Pilots are specified so the same hardware and platform scale without replacement — ask for the scale price alongside the trial
- Mounting
- Pole, column, wall, kerb or vehicle, confirmed against the street furniture you actually have and its load and access constraints
- Power
- Mains, street lighting circuit, solar or battery. Solar performance depends on latitude, shading and season, and is confirmed for your location rather than assumed
- Connectivity
- Low-power radio, cellular or mesh, chosen for coverage across the district — including the streets where coverage is worst, not the ones where it is best
- Calibration
- Environmental sensors drift with age, temperature and humidity. Factory calibration, re-calibration intervals and reference comparison are part of the specification, not an afterthought
- Data standards
- Open formats and documented APIs, so data can be exported and read by another supplier. This is the line that decides whether year six is a renewal or a hostage negotiation
- Data protection
- Retention, storage location, access control and published notices are the operating authority's responsibility. Devices are specified to collect what the purpose requires and no more
- Identification
- Anything that identifies vehicles or people — plate recognition, biometric systems — requires a lawful basis in the destination, and biometric identification in public space is restricted or prohibited in a number of markets
- Environmental rating
- Ingress, temperature, vandal and impact ratings selected for unattended street installation, including reachable positions
- Support window
- How long each line is supported and spares are available, stated at order. A device with a four-year support window on a fifteen-year asset is a future problem
- Maintenance
- Cleaning, battery replacement, calibration and firmware updates across a distributed estate. Access and traffic management are usually the larger cost, not the part
- Installation
- Highway permits, traffic management, electrical connection and utility coordination handled through partners and quoted separately
- Integration
- Interfaces to existing city, traffic or asset systems available per product; the integration work itself is quoted separately
- Procurement
- Documentation prepared for tender submission, with phased delivery across financial years where the process requires it
- Expansion
- Additional devices supplied to the original firmware, mounting and platform standard so the estate stays uniform
- Documentation
- Manuals, declarations, certification file, calibration records and the asset register, in the destination language where available
- Warranty
- Manufacturer's terms per model, stated on the quotation. Vandalism and vehicle impact are not warranty matters — hold spares accordingly
All specifications are confirmed on the approved configuration sheet for your order.
The category on the street
Devices, mountings and the platforms behind them.
Take the detail with you
Asked before you ask
01 How is this different from your other Smart City page?
This one is the technology layer — sensors, traffic and lighting hardware, municipal robots and the data platform behind them. The page in our Development & Smart Housing division is the built environment: the districts, buildings and infrastructure themselves. If you are instrumenting a place that already exists, you are in the right page. If you are planning or building the place, start with the development division. Many programmes need both, and we will join them up rather than making you brief two teams.
02 Will we be locked into your platform?
Not if you specify against it, and we would encourage you to. Ask any supplier — including us — three questions: can we export the full historical data in an open format, are the APIs documented and available without an extra licence, and can a different supplier read what your devices produce. Put the answers in the contract. A closed platform is a fifteen-year supplier relationship you did not intend to sign, and it is the single most expensive mistake made in this category.
03 What about residents' privacy?
Take it seriously before installation rather than after the first complaint. Most environmental and counting sensors do not identify anyone and that is worth saying publicly. Anything that does — plate recognition, biometric systems — needs a lawful basis, and biometric identification in public space is restricted or prohibited in a number of markets. We supply plain-language material describing what each device collects and why, so you can publish it before the equipment appears on a street. Deployments that arrive unexplained generate opposition that stops programmes.
04 How reliable is the data?
It depends far more on the calibration regime than on the sensor's headline specification. Low-cost environmental sensors drift with age, temperature and humidity, and a network left uncalibrated produces numbers that look authoritative and cannot be defended when a resident, a councillor or a journalist questions them. We state the calibration interval per device and can arrange reference comparison. Data you cannot stand behind is worse than no data at all in a public setting.
05 Who supports this in year eight?
A fair question, and one most suppliers avoid. We state the support window and spares availability per line at order, and we tell you when a product is approaching end of life rather than letting you expand an estate that is about to become unsupportable. If a device has a four-year support window and you are installing it on a fifteen-year asset, that is a decision to take with open eyes.
06 What do you need in order to quote?
The question you are trying to answer, first — it often turns out fewer devices in better places would do. Then the district size and a map, what street furniture and power you have, your connectivity coverage, whether this is a pilot or a rollout and what the scale would be, whether it is a tender and against what specification, the destination country and the quantity. If you are working to a published tender, send it: the specification usually decides what can be offered at all.
Start with the question, not the device
Tell us what you are trying to measure, manage or improve, and where. You will hear back within two working days with what would actually answer it, how it scales, and an indicative range.
If the programme is closer to one of these, start there instead — the pricing, the lead time and the paperwork are all different.