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This fall, some Belgian Post employees started using RFID technology to help police find lost and stolen bicycles. At the same time, it is also one of their daily work.Every time mail is distributed, postal workers use RFID readers, PDAs with GPS to read theRFIDLabel. The service CycloSafe, provided by the postal company bpost, is already in use in four Belgian cities. It will also be rolled out to most Belgian cities in the future.
Bpost is a Belgian private postal company. Corporate postmen typically travel by bicycle or on foot. Kathleen Van Beveren, the company’s director of public health operations, said the company was taking action to expand its operations to provide some non-postal services.
Van Beveren said the company was very interested in an initiative to find lost or stolen bicycles. To this end, Bpost has had several discussions with the local government and the police department. She added that the company not only wants to find the location of the bikes, but also the owners of the bikes. Belgian bike theft is rampant, with some thieves simply “borrowing” a bike and dumping it at random in another location. Therefore, these stolen bicycles are often found in public places. After finding the bikes, the police took over the bikes for half a year. If it is not claimed within six months, the police will sell it.
“We thought we should use our network of postmen to do something,” Van Beveren said, noting that some thieves would bring bikes home, which is not easy to find. Some thieves drop their bikes at another location, such as schools, universities, and train stations. Bpost started looking for a solution, and they found that while ordinary RFID tracking systems could identify bicycles, they were difficult to read and had limited reading range. Bpost wanted to find a solution with a read range of 1-2 meters, so they could do their bike-finding tasks without compromising their delivery.
Hervé Toussaint, Belgian manager of identification and mobility technology company Zetes, said Zetes had tailored an RFID solution for bpost.
Bike owners can sign up for the service on the CycloSafe website, at the bpost post office, or in a bike shop, and purchase a CycloSafe device with two built-in RFID-resistant metal tags that lock onto the bike’s frame. Both tags have the same unique identifier.
The device costs 30 euros, which includes three years of service. If the user’s bicycle is lost or stolen, the information can be reported on the network. The software then updates the bike’s location.
The postman is equipped with an RFID UHF Bluetooth provided by TSLReader. When the postman walks into a CycloSafe-equipped bicycle, he can remove the reader from the holster and press a button to obtain the bicycle ID code. Then, the data is automatically uploaded to the bpost server. At the same time, Zetes on the server will determine if the bike is missing the bike list. If it is on the list, the software will automatically forward the information to local police and bike owners.
Zetes chose the Confidex tag, which offers a read distance of 1.5 meters. The reader has a built-in rechargeable battery that lasts up to 8 hours. In addition, the reader can vibrate, sound, and light up when reading the tag.
Bpost hopes to enhance the benefits and the company’s public image through this system. What’s more, this new business also improves the occupational safety of postmen. Currently, the service is only available in four cities (Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Leuven). In the future, the company will extend it to more cities.
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