Piper app, network of beacons make Columbus the first 'Safe City'

With a flick of a smart phone switch, Columbus became the first “Safe City” in the world today.

At a formal announcement beside the Eagle-Phenix condominiums, Mayor Teresa Tomlinson capped a brief presentation of the new Piper app by activating a network of more than 1,000 beacons around Columbus that will communicate with users by smart phone.

In addition to its commercial, academic and non-profit applications, the network offers a public safety feature, especially for users of the Chattahoochee Riverwalk. A series of 37 Beacons are mounted aloft along the Riverwalk. Piper users can click on each beacon and not only learn historical or cultural facts about the immediate area, but they can also use it to call 911 in case of an emergency.

“In many places along the Riverwalk, obviously some of the most lovely and remote places, your exact location becomes uncertain,” said Columbus Police Maj. Stan Swiney, who worked with Piper to create the network. “We wanted to make sure that when someone sees something they want to report to the police or needs the assistance of any public safety, that they will be able to narrow their location down. That’s what the Piper beacons do or us.”

The app will give users the nearest beacon number and allow them to dial 911 from the app itself, Swiney said. The locations of the beacons have been loaded into the 911 response computer, so the dispatcher will know exactly where the caller is. The technology is more accurate than GPS, Swiney said.

Columbus State University is also using the Piper technology to send out messages and to accommodate tours of the downtown campus using the app. John Lester, CSU’s communications chief, said the technology helps his department communicate with millennials in a fashion they are familiar with.

“It allows us to bring the message to a tech-savvy, socially comfortable, younger generation of students,” Lester said. “It’s just another way for us to talk to those students, those incoming Columbus State University students in a way that’s very, very comfortable to them.”

Those young, tech-savvy students are one of many reasons that Columbus was chosen as the pilot city for Piper, said Wesley Ker-Fox, co-founder of Piper.

“Columbus provides us with a microcosm for us to test in,” Ker-Fox said. “You have large enterprises. You have an active small business community. You have incredible attractions and organizations and you have a thriving Uptown. Columbus is also a very tech-savvy town.”

Tomlinson said Piper joins a long line of innovators who have called Columbus home, including the creation of Coca-Cola.

“The truth is, Columbus is a city of innovators. We embrace ingenuity, and that is very important in an era that will be marked by ingenuity and creativity,” Tomlinson said. “It is very appropriate that we are the first Piper beacon city. You can have the greatest app in the world, but if you don’t have a network of beacons and if you don’t have a breadth of users, it doesn’t matter.”

Piper is a proximity-based Bluetooth messaging network based in San Diego, Calif. The company installed the entire network of beacons in the city at no cost to taxpayers, Ker-Fox said.

This story was originally published December 4, 2015 at 3:45 PM with the headline "Piper app, network of beacons make Columbus the first 'Safe City'."