Children’s road safety in Prague

The City District of Prague 6 manages a total of 33 kindergartens, which are attended by children aged between three and six. As part of pre-school preparation, all facilities try to provide children with the opportunity to enjoy the outdoors in parks or at themed events, such as a visit to a nearby zoo. Due to the nature of the capital and the city district, group walks require heightened attention from adult chaperones, especially at road crossings and on public transport. The city of Prague is seeking a technological solution to facilitate the safe supervision of groups of children moving through the city.

Flare’s solution will help kindergarten chaperones manage preschoolers during their daily walks. Chaperones’ mobile phones will let them know where children are at all times. The solution will comprise a GPS tracker with a Bluetooth module and mobile app. The device senses the distance between the child and the chaperone. If a child ventures out of range, an alert will be sent to the chaperones’ mobile phones. This will be particularly helpful when handling groups of over 20 children. To make it easy to use, Flare is developing mass anonymous device pairing. In this way, chaperones will not waste their time pairing individual trackers before taking the children out for their daily walk. Additionally, GPS trackers are equipped with safety reflectors, increasing the children’s visibility in traffic. Anonymised data on the children’s movements can be further used by the city district for traffic planning and safety features.

During the project, two kindergarten classes will test the Flare solution, each with two chaperones and 30 children.