The outdoor world has been mapped to within an inch of its life, with powerful mappings solutions from HERE Technologies, Apple and Google offering us a snapshot of practically any street in the world, along with details on the most efficient way to get there. However, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Americans spend around 93% of their time indoors. This shows that there is clearly a large disconnect, and an even larger opportunity to explore when it comes to mapping the indoor world. The learnings and benefits we have taken from navigating the outdoor world should be used and applied to the indoors and extending this would present numerous benefits with global appeal.
We know how to get from home to the office, but what’s next? How do we knock ‘down the door’ and discover the indoor world?
Real time indoor location mapping has shown to have an important role in solving real life business challenges. This has been particularly relevant in the healthcare sector during the pandemic, where resources were spread thin and being able to locate the right people at the right time was fundamental.
When it comes to utilizing location-based technology to help support this, hospitals have reported an increase in 175 hrs. per week in added time for clinicians to care for patients, 29% reduced wait times, 40% faster response time leading to increased patient safety and 20% increase in capacity.
By providing real time location information, healthcare workers in hospitals have been able to increase the number of tasks completed by 94% and reduced bed turnaround time by 35%. During the pandemic it also helped ensure faster cleaning of infectious areas in hospitals, full visibility of patient movements, and connect porters directly with staff to ensure that vital equipment was transported to where it needed to be.
We have seen how infrastructure free indoor mapping in hospitals can improve efficiency of organizing and planning of both clinical and non clinical resources, resulting in better patient care. However, the opportunities of mapping the indoor world are not limited to the healthcare sector.
We see many other industries – such as engineering, construction and manufacturing that could potentially benefit from knowing the location of both assets and people. In fact, the applications are endless – today’s technology works where GPS doesn’t, it allows us to create 3D maps that can locate people and assets with no additional infrastructure, making it easy for clients to deploy it while also doubling up its workforce capacity.
Let’s consider here some possible scenarios and further benefits indoor mapping technology can bring:
Retail environments and better customer security and safety – an obvious application of indoor mapping is within a retail environment. Being able to know where your security guards are located within a shopping center at any time can help not only to combat petty criminals but also be able to react to any customer emergencies.
University campuses and cost efficiencies– some universities have embraced indoor location systems to help provide information about their buildings – whether academic buildings, laboratories, or student and staff accommodation. These are buildings that often go through many changes of usage in a year – from offices being repurposed as laboratories to structural changes and modifications to students’ halls and rooms. Having a better understanding how they are used can help manage them more efficiently, keeping track of management costs and tenants’ occupancy and rent payments in real-time.
Train stations and travel connection improvements – how many of us have got off the train at a major station and looked confused on where to go next? Railway operators – and Schweizerische Bundesbahnen is a trailblazer in this space – can avoid this: by accurately mapping their indoor locations, teams can have better knowledge of their assets – such as escalators, lamps and bins – and manage them more efficiently and customers can navigate this space more easily.
Innovation in indoor location technology is growing fast, moving away from GPS systems to AI-based solutions that can be enabled by using sensors in smartphones. “Digital twin” models can be created easily to give precise data representations of reality. These systems can help with asset inspection, measurements and tagging of individual objects inside any building with millimetre precision.
In addition, industry reports estimate that the global indoor location market will reach USD171bn by 2026, due to interest in public safety, increased penetration of smartphones, and insufficiency of GPS technology in indoor locations.
There is still a lot to discover within the indoor world and we look forward to being part of this journey.
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