Smart Urban Objects to Enhance Safe Participation in Major Events for the Elderly

IoT increasingly permeates the public area, e.g., in traffic control and public transport. We propose to equip conventional urban objects with IoT technology to transform them into Smart Urban Objects (SUO’s). While there exists some research exploring the potentials, specific solutions to enhance safety for the elderly outdoors are still lacking. The elderly’s safety is threatened due to declim.ng physical conditions. As a consequence, the elderly may be excluded from outdoor activities such as participating in major events. Against this backdrop, we design SUOs for adaptive indications of urban hazards, barrier-free passages and for smart reservation of seats to enhance resting possibilities. We report on our solution using Bluetooth technology for remote sensing of older pedestrians serving as input for the objects’ adaptive capacities. The SUOs have been installed for test purposes on a major event in a larger German city.