CITs Topical New Big and Open Data Project

When the Cork Institute of Technology (CIT)’s Department of Computer Science collaborated with partners across Europe on a new SMART Technologies project, Dr. Ted Scully and Dr. Sean McSweeney did not anticipate just how relevant their research might become in times of the COVOID 19 pandemic.

THE BODAH project, co-financed by the Atlantic Interreg Programme, is researching the role of big and open data in heritage and tourism planning and management. The project has partners in Ireland, Wales, France, Spain and Portugal and will run to early 2022.

Dr. Ted Scully notes that “When we embarked on developing this proposal, our focus was on major tourism locations, with a view to using smart technologies in crowd predictions and management.    In the present COVID 19 circumstances, we may be using the technology to help in the planning.

Dr. Ted Scully, Computer Science Dept. CIT

Dr. Sean McSweeney is working on the design, development and deployment of the sensing equipment, which will firstly be used in a number of test locations across the 8 partner regions . Sean explains that a range of sensors, measuring temperature, background sounds etc. can feed data to a management centre.

Dr. Sean McSweeney, Computer Science Dept. CIT

This data can be combined with a wide range of other data including weather, load factors on public transport and airport /seaport arrival information and hotel occupancy and all can all be used in a predictive model to estimate likely crowd sizes in a range of different venues. The plan was to use this to ensure that specific venues such as tourism or heritage sites could schedule visitors in a manner which while maximise visitor numbers, would also keep total footfall within overall sustainable levels.

The new challenge of the project is to achieve its original objectives in the expectation that tourism will return to normality in 2021. However, the technology can also be used to assist in what is a new sustainability regime in terms of ensuring public health and social distancing monitoring.

The BODAH team at CIT is currently busy designing and building the technology. Plans are in place for a roll out of a Cork City pilot test site before the end of the year. Hopes are high that conquering COVID 19 will in time permit the technology to be rolled out for its intended use to maximise the beneficial effects of a vibrant tourism sector in the region.

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