BLOG: Managing crowds in public transport systems is never easy. This technology helps
Avoidance of crowding and overcrowding situations in public transport systems is crucial to increase the passengers comfort and satisfaction during normal operation, as well as to manage emergency situations.
Nobody likes crowded train and tram platforms. This shared annoyance became all the more apparent during the COVID19 crisis, when safe distance between passengers proved crucial in the fight against the virus.
Much ink has been spilled about how to count, regulate, and analyze passenger flows. Various systems are available, each with their own shortcomings.
Camera systems, for example, are expensive to install and only provide clear images if external factors such as sufficient light are present. This definitely is an issue when it comes to stations with poor light conditions or infrastructural limits (low ceilings, obstacles like pillars, …). Moreover, it is extremely complex to process and analyze all the incoming images.
In addition, other technologies like smartphone, GPS and Bluetooth have been proposed for estimation of crowd location, density, and dynamics. These existing techniques may raise data privacy concerns and might become obsolete with the emerging data privacy laws.
And that's where CrowdScan comes in. Our technology provides a wireless crowd density system that predicts size and density of crowds. The system is even capable of detecting critical situations in which dangerously large amounts of people are present.
6 advantages of CrowdScan's patented technology:
- CrowdScan's methodology does not make use of camera images and operates entirely in a device-free manner in which the presence of people on low-energy radio frequency signals in the environment is used.
- Using this approach, it is impossible to determine the identity of individuals, which therefore results in a system that is inherently privacy-conscious.
- The technology works real-time - up to 50 ms - which allows for smarter and faster operational decision making, whilst generating insights for more efficient future planning.
- Our technology is 95% accurate in predicting crowds compared to other measuring techniques. It’s also very stable in terms of coverage and works perfectly in any kind of environment as well as under poor light conditions.
- Compared to cameras, our system proves to be budget-friendly
- Thanks to the nature of our solution, only people within very precisely defined zones (e.g., the platform) will be counted.
Want to know more? Our motivated and skilled team of CrowdScanners is here to help you out!