RFID for better health in Denmark!

Background

In Denmark campaigns like "We ride our bicycles to work" or "All kids bicycle" have shown that both children and adults bicycle more when prizes can be won. Tedious manual input of data and time delays however make it impossible to get an updated view of how many people actually do ride their bikes and it might also discourage some from participating in the campaigns at all.

Experiences from the United States have however shown that with automatic registration a long term concept can be found which stimulates to more bicycling.

The project 

This American concept, based on RFID readers and tags on the bicycles, was adapted to the Fredericia municipality in Denmark. The registration should occur at the destination of the bike ride and readers have consequently been offered to schools and employers in Fredericia.

The involved SW house developed a database and an associated website that receives all registrations, i.e. location, time and ID. This information is transferred from the readers to the database in two ways:

1. Directly in the MS SQL database. Logics in the reader determine when the transfer shall occur.

2. Via Internet through a web gateway. The client determines when the transfer shall occur.

The reader will only transfer one registration per day per tag ID. The basic data is the tag ID, the reader ID and the timestamp.

Several suppliers of RFID were invited to respond to the RFP from Fredericia. One of them, Scirocco AB together with its local partner, RFID Specialisten, was chosen to initially supply:

• R610 'Connect' readers with integrated support for WIFI and 3G, as well as movement sensors. 
• A100 antennas with linear polarisation. 
• Several hundreds of tags for each reading site. 

The reader, the antenna and all the equipment for communicating over WIFI and 3G are integrated in one box that is ready to be plugged in and configured for the local network. This means that the installation costs are minimised and the RFID-box is universal and can be used for other similar purposes.  

The tags were after extensive testing success- fully mounted on the wheel spokes. The required reading distance for the project was 4m, but verifications confirmed reading distances of 6-9m with all readers, as Troels Andersen, the project manager of Fredericia Cyclecity, was delighted to find out. Other tests showed that several bicycles together passing at high speed (for bicycles) were correctly read as well. Prizes to be won were ranging from little children gifts, e.g. tattoos and bracelets, to dinners in local restaurants and even bicycles. 

Fig.1: The wheel-mounted tag is read when passing within 6m of the box.

Future Opportunities

This bicycle project, CykelScore, was presented during a bicycle conference in Fredericia on 27 October 2011. It is actually planned as a pilot project, which after proven success will be introduced in other parts of Denmark as well.This is expected to take place in the coming year, with the support of Kræftens Bekæmpelse, the Danish organisation for the prevention of cancer, which has shown substantial interest in it.