As public areas, gatherings, and cities continue to be swamped with crowds, it becomes increasingly important to comprehend the movement and actions of the people.
Whether controlling crowds during significant events, improving safety, or streamlining retail space, crowd statistics and people count systems are vital to understanding a given movement pattern.
The video analytics incorporated in these systems involve technology that has changed the ways of watching and understanding human behaviour and analyzing behaviour itself.
This post will focus on defining crowd statistics, people count video, and crowd analysis principles and their application in various areas.
Table of Contents
Crowd Statistics And People Count: Introduction
Crowd statistics are data about large populations within containment areas, particularly publicly accessible venues and during mass gatherings of people such as sports or music festivals.
This information has many purposes, be it in public security or business activity, since it gives the power to either the authorities or organizations to control people for their and other people’s protection.
People counting is the technology or method of estimating the total number of persons or individuals in a locality or a building. Due to advancements in video analytics, this technology gradually improves as a person’s movement is now easier to monitor in real time.
The Application of Video Analytics in People Count and Crowd Analytics
People counting and crowd statistics have significantly advanced due to the development of video analytics.
Video analytics scans and records footage from surveillance or dedicated cameras via artificial intelligence algorithms and apps, enabling the study of movement in real-time or as recorded events. It can track such parameters as:
- Number of people who have come into or left a location
- Crowd strength or flow speed
- Types of activities that take place (such as pace of walking or time spent without movement)
- (to some extent) Any unexpected behavior (like mass movement or active crowd in case of emergency)
Organizations can employ crowd analytics, a video analytics that assesses large groups of people, to provide real-time feedback about the crowd’s movements and behavior. This could help prevent congestion or develop commercial areas.
Applications of People Counting and Crowd AnalyticsSystems
- Retail Sector
The stores can use multiple crowd statistics and data on people’s counts. Customer traffic tracking can be easily integrated into stores using video analytics.
The following data can be determined:
- The number of shoppers who passed through the door
- The hour of most traffic
- The location within the store that attracts the most people.
With this information, retail managers can determine the optimal employee level, store organization, advertising, and even well-timed pricing on certain goods.
For instance, when people frequently travel to a specific store location, sellers put the best-selling or advertised items there to encourage consumers to buy. Video analytics also assists in evaluating the success of marketing campaigns.
- Public Events and Stadiums
Concerts, sports engagements, and festivals are other examples of large-scale public activities that warrant the presence of a huge number of people, and these must be controlled to prevent incidences.
Crowd size and crowd movement monitoring can also be provided during the event, allowing the organizers to:
- Prevent the areas that could lead to accidents
- Control the rate at which people are moving to and from an area
- Prepare the necessary actions in case there are unanticipated situations
- Control tickets and seats
It is useful in accomplishing this since crowd estimates assist in predicting crowd movement. Hence, tension and disorder, such as stampedes, can be changed, and even the crowds’ experience can be improved.
- Urban Planning and Smart Cities
In cities, the efficient utilization of public resources remains important if the area is to be habitable. Enabling people to count within smart cities assists urban planners in:
- Track the number of pedestrians moving on streets and other open spaces.
- Improve layouts of sidewalks, greens, and transport terminals.
- Establish areas with high population density or weak links in the transport network.
- Estimate the future infrastructure value needed for population figures.
With the help of video analytics, smart cities can automatically alter lighting systems, public transit systems, and other emergency services based on crowd density and movement.
- Healthcare and Hospitals
In emergencies, knowledge of crowd behavior and clinic patient flow can be essential for their organization.
People counting systems can be utilized to:
- Count the number of visiting patients in a waiting room.
- Trace the location of a patient within different areas of the hospital.
- Manage the human resources according to the time, pushing a maximum number of patients on the ward.
- Regulate access to emergency areas, making sure they are not too busy and thus reducing the risk of patients in such areas.
Furthermore, hospitals can monitor footfall and control the number of hospital visitors to avoid further infection spread during epidemics or outbreaks.
- Public Transportation
Passenger counts and crowd control strategies are important aspects of the operational efficiency of public transport systems, especially in larger cities.
With the use of mobile apps or algorithms that keep track of the number of passengers present and their location within the system, the authorities can;
- Allocate appropriate bus, train, and subway service frequencies;
- Regulate station usage and amalgamate perceived waiting lines;
- Enhance safety and minimize disturbances or delays related to passenger movement;
- Video analytics also improves surveillance, helping preserve order by detecting suspicious actions and averting violence or accidents.
- CCTV and Surveillance Cameras
These are the first methods of data collection. Therefore, it is important to install CCTVs in strategic places (entrances, exits, crowded areas), as video analytic techniques need to analyze footage constantly captured by these places.
The evolution of systems in camera quality and, recently, AI has made it possible for systems to keep track of persons even in congested places.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning
Video image recording uses AI algorithms to capture, recognize, and track videos of people. Such systems can learn behavior patterns and movements without people and provide real-time information that can be acted upon.
Machine learning enables the systems to become better over time by using data and staying in different environments.
- Heatmaps and Flow Analysis
Some of the high-end tools for crowd analytics allow for the creation of heat maps that demonstrate the most visited zones in a given area.
These heat maps are helpful in the following ways:
- Predicting areas that are likely to get overpopulated.
- Improving the design of stores or planning the cities.
- Studying patroness activity in the course of business in retail outlets.
Flow analysis helps to further understand the dynamics as this technique uses scope to encompass a concept that monitors the movements of persons around a designated venue or zone, thereby making it possible for businesses and authorities to foresee and respond to crowd migration tendencies.
Benefits of Using Video Analytics for Crowd Statistics
- Enhanced Security
Crowd analytics is useful to event organizers, city designers, and transport authorities. It senses the potential chances of overpopulation or unpleasant crowd behaviors that could be risky. With real-time information, stampedes or situations of panic can be preempted.
- Operational Efficiency
In the business of retail, health care, public transportation, or any form of enterprise where there are many people, such systems also make it possible to allocate the resources of the organizations effectively to:
- Staff strategically important zones more competently
- Improve service delivery by the number of customers who are present and seeking service
- Lower the costs incurred due to over-employment or mesa resources that are not in use
- Enhanced Customer Experience
Organizations make biased and irrational decisions through crowds, but this can be done through data and analysis to provide a better overall user experience in a specific area.
For instance, some retailers would better serve their customers at particular times, or in the case of public transport, crowded areas during peak hours.
- Data-Driven Decision Making
Crowd statistics can then provide cold facts that can be used in strategic business moves, city planning, or ensuring customer safety. The ability to gather, analyze, and act on real-time data ensures that the decisions made are evidence-based and not based on guesswork.
- Compliance with Health and Safety Regulations
The solutions supplied by video analytics allow businesses and public venues to conform to the regulations set by authorities, especially concerning the number of people allowed to be in a particular venue.
During pandemics or health crises, these systems become very useful in keeping the size of crowds at a bare minimum to avoid the spread of contagious diseases.
Future scope
Crowd statistics and people counting systems are becoming increasingly important in today’s data-rich world, where informed decision-making is paramount. Through video analysis and crowd analytics, businesses, public spaces, and urban planning can reduce risks, increase efficiency, and improve the customer experience.
