How Beonic helped UWE transform into a smart campus
The University of the West of England (UWE), located in Bristol, is a modern university with roots that date back to the founding of the 16th century Bristol Society of Merchant Venturers' Navigation School.
Today, UWE has more than 30,000 students, 4,000 of whom are international hailing from 140 different countries and over 3,000 staff. Organised across 14 departments, UWE has three campuses in and around Bristol, with additional campuses in Gloucestershire.
Recent large-scale investment in its facilities have resulted in a new Students’ Union as well as state-of-the-art learning spaces and accommodation, currently in development.
The Problem
Universities across the world have faced severe challenges and disruptions post-pandemic. Students and staff alike are now used to working flexibly and remotely. This has changed how the facilities on campus are being used.
Having previously invested in its facilities, the team at UWE wanted to gain insights into how their buildings are now being utilised. How often are students and staff members coming to use the facilities on campus? Which are being used the most?
Understanding this behaviour will enable UWE to focus their investments more intelligently moving forward, and also enable them to make their campus more sustainable. Sustainability is an important topic for UWE and they have pledged to be carbon neutral by 2030.
The Solution
To better understand occupancy and space utilisation, data is being captured & correlated from several sources including UWE’s existing Aruba WiFi access points and Xovis 3D people counting sensors.
Beonic deployed Xovis 3D people counting sensors across three campus buildings (Library, Lecture Halls and Administration Block) in order to accurately monitor people occupancy and footfall.
By piggybacking off the existing Wi-Fi infrastructure, Beonic is able to track accurate visitor dwell time information per location. This enables us to better understand the utilisation of the facilities as well as trends.
UWE is able to combine both data sources in the Beonic Insights platform, enabling them to track and understand how their facilities are being utilised.
The Outcome
Beonic delivered the Insights platform that contains both the people counting and WiFi data. By reporting occupancy and location data together, the UWE team is able to better understand how their main facility buildings are being utilised. This knowledge enables UWE to optimise their operational and energy efficiency, ensuring that energy is not wasted heating or cooling buildings that are not being used and allowing the facilities team to focus their efforts in the busiest locations.
Over time these insights provide clarity into key behavioral trends, which in turn will help UWE make informed decisions on optimising their operational efficiency and increasing student satisfaction with their facilities.
Beonic Solutions Used
People Counting and WiFi Analytics
Testimonial
“At the University of the West of England, we wanted to better understand the new student and staff behaviour since the pandemic, to be able to better focus our resources.
With Beonic’s help, people counting sensors were installed, which was combined with our WiFi data, so that we could track the trends of staff and student behavior in key university buildings. Thanks to their expert teams, the implementation process was smooth and quick.
We now have access to easy to understand dashboards and utilisation reports that can be easily shared with the relevant teams. With these dashboards, we can prioritise our resources and plan our future investments for improving facilities for University of the West of England students and staff.”
Marcus Falla
IT Manager
