Challenge
Our client, UCD, is one of the leading educational institutions in Ireland. As a globally recognized environment, it sought an intelligent solution that would help both residents and non-residents of the UCD Campus feel safer during their daily journeys while moving through campus, no matter the time.
Personal safety has long been a topic of concern and consideration for many going about their day-to-day and with an increase in crime (from the CSO, recorded incidents went up by 26% between 2022 and 2023) the fear and perception of a potential threat often has a significant impact on people in society.
According to the CSO, 18% of women surveyed have said they walk less than weekly citing personal safety reasons and the fear something will happen, which is more than double that of men in the same category (8%). Overall, 12.3% of respondents have said they have personal safety concerns which have negatively impacted their walking habits. These unfortunate statistics highlight the societal situation we have found ourselves in, and it is our aim to help combat this.
Expleo’s mission was to create a personal safety solution building on our initial Hackathon initiative, which could help increase the feeling of personal safety for all campus-goers within University College Dublin.
Solution
Originating in an internal company Hackathon centred around the UN SDG’s; using design thinking and an innovation accelerator approach, Expleo SafeHubs was developed after we determined an urgent need in the marketplace for such a solution, following months of desirability, viability and feasibility research with campuses across Ireland, campus-goers, estate services and other expert stakeholders.
The central idea and one of the key features of the SafeHubs solution is that when people are walking alone and feeling unsafe or threatened, they can use the app on their mobile phone to be directed to a physical ‘Safe Hub’ haven location. We have expanded on this and built several features to facilitate the increased feeling of personal safety on the UCD campus.
The user can share their location with a backend remote monitoring team, usually the security team within the campus environment, which allows the security team to contact the user should they feel the need to. The solution also offers the user a direct link to relevant emergency services through an emergency button and allows for in-app comms (voice & chat) to ensure the further well-being of the students, staff and residents on campus, as well as enabling the security team to issue broadcast notifications to all those with the app installed.
The user’s personal information is always protected and is anonymised when sharing their location with the security team. We have worked extensively with the Data Protection Office within UCD to ensure GDPR compliance on all user data.
UCD Estate Services, through its UNICARE programme, has provided support to students and staff in the University, such as the Walk Safe initiative. A system to compliment and enhance these services had been thoroughly researched, so the opportunity to partner with Expleo in their development of the SafeHubs application was taken with great interest, as a reminder of our commitment to our staff and students. Expleo have been very open to our own suggestions on the services that the Safehubs app could deliver to the campus environment, as we aim to do everything we can to ensure the wellbeing and personal safety of those on campus, incorporating them into our pilot programmes. UCD Estate Services are in the process of establishing the interest and need for an innovative solution such as SafeHubs, and we’re confident the pilot programmes will help support the business case for such a system in the future, benefitting those on campus with greater peace of mind.
Benefits
The solution is uniquely positioned to handle the ever-growing and changing needs of the campus environment, which can be simply installed onto a user’s mobile phone – making it easy and the optimum solution to help increase the feeling of personal safety and protection.
There are multiple benefits for the campus and campus-goers. These include:
- Increasing the feeling of personal safety and protection on campus.
- Digitalising existing Campus Uni-care service
- Giving users peace of mind that their campus cares about protecting them and that all precautions are being taken to do so.
- Protecting vulnerable and less tech-savvy users; the campus and the SafeHubs solution are now assisting them in their day-to-day journeys.
