Smart Dublin’s Ring Buoy Monitoring Project

About the city. Dublin City Council operates approximately 130 ring buoys in Dublin. These ring buoys are located on the banks of two channels and three rivers (Liffey, Tolka and Dodder), in the Docklands area and in the city Council beach areas.

Goal

The aim of the project is to help reduce the number of ring buoy thefts across Dublin, helping to save lives.

Implementation period. The project started in 2019.

Fact

• Approximately 15 ring buoys are lost/stolen every week. This problem exists in all 31 local authorities in Ireland, with 18 managing coastal water safety and all managing inland water safety.
• Ring buoys cost about 40 euros a piece, so replacing about 600 a year costs Dublin City Council more than 20,000 euros a year. In addition, many of the missing ring buoys end up in landfills, generating huge amounts of plastic waste, which is a negative impact on Dublin City Council’s sustainability programs.
• Recent research from watersafety.ie showed that an average of 120 people die from drowning each year.

Solutions

In December 2019, Dublin City Council issued a Prior Information Notice (PIN) to understand what innovative solutions were available to better manage ring buoys in Dublin and across Ireland. Based on feedback from market consultation participants, Dublin City Council issued a Tender Notice for the Framework Agreement.

As this problem is not unique to Dublin, Dublin City Council and Water Safety Ireland are testing a new two-phased procurement approach that aims to allow local authorities across Ireland to procure solutions tested under this project without having to repeat the trial phase.

Phase 1: testing – the first stage of the contract will be dedicated to piloting various solutions. At the end of the first stage, the pilots will be evaluated.

Phase 2: deployment- the solutions that are evaluated as successful will be deployed using a phase 2 contract.

In 2020 Dublin-based ZiggyTec was selected as one of four bidders to complete the first phase of the Smart Dublin ring buoy monitoring project.

This initiative, run in conjunction with Dublin City Council, aims to help curb the theft of ring buoys across the capital. ZiggyTech is an advanced IoT solution that provides real-time data on health and safety equipment, utilities, and air quality.

ZiggyTec technology uses a security connector to send an alert to first responders when the buoy is removed from the hull.

Team

Dublin City Council, Water Safety Ireland, ZiggyTech

Timeline

Dublin City Council was awarded €15,000 from DPER’s Public Service Innovation Fund to help address the Ring Buoy challenge through innovative solutions.

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