PORTO: Routers on 600 buses and taxis sanction free Internet access and accumulate data for city planners. A massive mobile Wi-Fi network that could be a model for many cities was launched in the city of Porto, Portugal, this fall.
The routers withal amass data from the conveyances – and from sensors on trash bins around the city – and relay it back to city offices to avail with civic orchestrating. More than 600 buses and taxis are a component of the network, which is now accommodating 70,000 people a month and absorbing between 50 and 80 percent of wireless traffic from users who otherwise would have had to utilize the cellular network.
In accumulation to supplying Internet access, the Porto network is being used to accumulate sensor data. Waste containers equipped with sensors utilize the network to relay whether they are plenary, so they can be picked up at the most efficient times.
Founder Joao Barros, an associate pedagogia of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Porto, verbalizes it plans to expand accommodation to other cities.