Brent 2 Go youth bus project

Background

The London Borough of Brent has living within it people from many backgrounds and cultures. The Council wanted to make contact with as many of these people as possible, such that their energies and activities would be directed to positive ends, and the help and advice available from the Council, for example, information on training courses, would reach its audience.

Traditionally the Council has operated static offices, where information about its help and support is made available to those who come in and ask. It was felt, by key Council staff, that this approach should be supplemented by an “Outreach programme”, where Council representatives would make contact with the youth of the area, on the street.

The Bus

A bus was chosen to be a mobile Council office taking information to the target audience, wherever they are. The bus had to present an attractive location to the youth of the area, so it was equipped with a discotheque downstairs.

Upstairs it was equipped with 8 laptops, a plasma display and Internet access. This gave it access to all the information stored on the Internet, making it a virtual library. It also enabled it to offer IT-delivered training courses on any subject.

BrownstoneIT

BrownstoneIT was selected to supply and install the mobile satellite Internet access dish. Our dish is fully automatic in operation using instruments such as GPS, tilt, skew and signal strength to peak on the correct satellite. It also incorporates safety sensors such that, if the vehicle moves, it automatically stows.

It delivers the bandwidth to give Internet connectivity to the Brent Council “Equipped 2 Go” bus.

Our service is complete, including installation and commissioning. We normally install a month after receipt of order, but we can move more quickly, if needed. In this case, project constraints required us to install the dish just over a week after receipt of the order.

We also offer a help-line for any operational queries.



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