Brazil. The challenges: Approximately three million people living in the semi-arid rural areas of eastern Brazil do not have access to clean drinking water. These communities do not receive water through aqueducts, their only option is to resort to federal aid and supply through trucks.
This humanitarian crisis is one of the biggest challenges facing the country. Much of the population lives in isolated places without sufficient roads or access to conventional water distribution infrastructure. Artisanal wells are usually not safe for human consumption and locating groundwater in this rocky region is often a difficult task.
Brazil's federal government, military and state administrations are responsible for trucking water to five million people in a region the size of France and Germany combined. Some teams are responsible for supply in urban environments. Others must bring water to populations inhabiting remote, drought-stricken areas and a rocky subsoil, which lack a real direction and are only reachable by geographical coordinates. In addition, this entire system is organized with the absence of cellular coverage in these rural destinations.
A number of challenges facing the country had to do with the logistics of water supply and vehicle maintenance, as well as the more than 250 million US dollars per year that it costs to maintain transport fleets. Another challenge was the high incidence of fraud that prevented the water from reaching its destination. Many water trucks were hijacked while on their way to the intended receivers. Printed water coupons that validated residents' right to receive monthly water were also cumbersome to handle, misplaced, and easy to alter. The government sought a technology partner that could offer a more economical solution to track, identify and make the entire water supply process more efficient, while reducing fraud and ensuring information security.
- The solution: The government leveraged the technological resources of Tomus, a HID Global partner dedicated to providing technology services that support sectors such as logistics, sanitation, energy, health, agriculture, and water supply, among others. The team of Tomus, a company based in Brazil, understood the challenges they had to face. They recognized the need to select an identification system that would be innovative and at the same time easy to use for any Brazilian citizen, including a large percentage of the population that cannot read or write and is not accustomed to using technology.
Tomus designed a bespoke solution that would fit the requirements of this complex water supply management system. The company selected a Secure Reader Module SE® with RFID technology from HID Global as an essential authentication component in the project. This solution allows those who transport and receive the water to identify themselves by RFID cards with different technologies and frequencies. HID offers the broadest offering of open and secure technology readers and credentials in the industry. Its renowned RFID technology is the ideal solution for this application, backed by the company's excellent reputation as a reliable and robust source of security and identification products employed in local and national government entities, and in U.S. embassies.
"Given the nature of this project and the security pitfalls it posed for the government, the military and the Brazilian national territory, it was essential to partner with an organization that offered us secure RFID reader modules, personalization of credentials and high-level encryption," said David Peixoto, executive director of Tomus. "We needed a highly qualified team to provide us with the right tools to carry out an accurate management of liquid supplies. The partnership between Tomus and HID Global turned out to be the perfect combination."
The solution is composed of the best software and the best equipment, very intuitive and secure. The Collector Reader Devices (TMS Collector) are installed in delivery tankers and are complemented by a HID Secure Reader Module SE® reader that supports a variety of credential and frequency technologies and can contain different levels of security, depending on customer needs or projects. The citizens' card also contains their geographical coordinates so that it works as a password and allows to verify their authorization to receive water. All information from beneficiaries, water tanks and tanker trucks of the program is obtained during the registration process.
The program's multidimensional authentication solution substantially reduces fraud. When the water is delivered, the Tomus device inside the truck validates, upon arrival, the place of supply of the liquid. A second confirmation is obtained when the driver makes contact with their RFID card. Finally, a third level of authentication is ensured when the person uses the RFID card. If there is anything suspicious in the process, the Tomus system makes a warning. The routes executed are compared with the planned supplies and at the end of each cycle the system calculates how much each driver should be paid according to their productivity. The process allows customers to plan, manage and monitor the entire operation efficiently and automatically.
- The results: Today, the Brazilian government is guaranteed that essential resources reach its citizens without delay and with transparency. The Tomus system with HID Global technology allows the identification of vehicles, operators and receivers of the service. The system manages and automates all the details by the Brazilian government and the Army battalions using a solution adapted to the needs of this project and through the use of robust and reliable RFID technology. Logistics and permanent or monthly reporting, among other functions, are executed optimally, safely and intuitively.
The complex tasks that Tomus and HID Global perform in the background generate great visible benefits, including:
• A simple yet advanced system that only requires civilians to tap with a card.
• 99.86% accuracy in secure and accurate supplies day after day using robust hardware and software technologies.
• Full reports and guarantee of 100,000 to 200,000 water deliveries each month to citizens truly in need in 800 cities throughout Brazil.
• Reduction of more than 25% in operating costs and reduction of fraud.
• An adoption rate of the program that went from 5% of the region's 27 army battalions, which used the system for water distribution in 2013, to 97.3% of the current operations of the federation's water tanker trucks, which rely on Tomus' customized monitoring solution.
