Customer case study / 2024 UK General Election

How Plymouth tracked 149 ballot boxes with ATLAS.

A shared view of ballot-box locations and return journeys helped Plymouth City Council’s elections team spot delays and monitor arrivals at the count.

The challenge

Confirming where ballot boxes were had depended largely on telephone calls and manual checks. Staff availability and variable mobile coverage could delay updates, with limited visibility of journeys after the close of poll.

One operational picture

ATLAS was deployed as a fully managed service across 149 ballot boxes. GPS-enabled trackers activated automatically at 6am on polling day and reported until the boxes had been checked back into the count venue.

Multi-network connectivity supported reporting where coverage varied. The average interval between location reports was 1 minute 6 seconds; the longest recorded interval was 2 minutes 5 seconds.

A delayed departure, made visible

After polls closed, one ballot box had not left its station when expected. Officers could see where it was, assess the delay and then follow its journey to arrival at 10:55pm.

From visibility to review

Approximately 1,000 kilometres of combined movement were monitored. The deployment reduced reliance on telephone updates and retained journey records for review and planning. Plymouth used ATLAS again for the 2026 local elections.