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[Ondrej Svacina, Business Development Manager
& Senior Consultant at SOFTEC]
The Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute (SHMÚ) provides
hydrological and meteorological services
on national and international levels.
SOFTEC is a Slovak IT company
and Microsoft Gold partner
delivering software and consulting
services for more than 30 years.
Harsh winter conditions make roads
slippery and dangerous for drivers.
Today, governments are moving
towards proactive road maintenance.
This enables significant savings and environmental benefits.
For example, you can save up to two
tonnes of salt by salting before snowfall.
But  to do this authorities need reliable forecasts
and information on road temperatures.
The Bratislava municipality operated
only one conventional weather station;
adding stations for more accurate predictions
around the city was too expensive,
costing up to €70,000 per station.
Road dispatchers could only rely on general
meteorological forecasts for the entire city.
SHMÚ partnered with SOFTEC to implement
a low-cost IoT meteorological station system
that measures road variables like surface
temperature, humidity, and others.
[Vladimir Rak, the Coordinator of business activities at SHMÚ]
We combine the data from the IoT stations
with our data in our computer
and we produce warnings and forecasts
for the road maintenance.
The data is processed, stored, and presented
using Microsoft Azure technologies.
[Ondrej Svacina, Business Development Manager
& Senior Consultant at SOFTEC]
Azure was a natural fit for us as we relied
on Microsoft solutions for other services.
With Azure, we don’t need to burden ourselves with
the technological infrastructure,
and we can concentrate on business functionality.
The whole system enables us to make our IoT devices
low-cost, low-energy,  and capable of running on batteries for years.
With our system, the authorities are prepared
a few days before the situation becomes critical.
Road dispatchers can make more localized interventions
like localized gritting as opposed to citywide salting.
Social workers can prepare to aid
the homeless better during cold spells
since they can act once reports of the first frost come in.
Overall, after the solution was deployed, the number of
traffic accidents decreased by 28%.
Microsoft helped us reach our goals more
rapidly and reduce the time to market.
By concentrating on business functionalities,
we shortened the lifecycle.
[Vladimir Rak, the Coordinator of business activities at SHMÚ]
The SHMÚ gave us a huge advantage and
strengthened our reputation and using the service.
We are able to expand the service to more customers,
to the entire country, and this is because of
Azure's seamless scalability.
SHMÚ and SOFTEC's expansion plans include
a more proactive and all-encompassing analysis.
[Ondrej Svacina, Business Development Manager
& Senior Consultant at SOFTEC]
We're implementing the next level system, diving into
machine learning, covering the entire route network.
Together with Microsoft,
we can create a digital future for our customers.
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