An automatic passenger counter is an electronic device that is positioned at the doors of transport vehicles such as light rail vehicles, buses, and other vehicles made up to transport passengers. The main job of the device is to correctly record entering and disembarking passengers. This technology can upgrade the authenticity and accuracy of keeping tabs on the number of people who use a certain public transportation system instead of the old ways of randomly surveying or counting passengers manually. This mode of automatically counting passengers is becoming common, and it is highly regarded as it increases efficiency in the transport system.
The system mainly uses CCTV cameras and infrared lights. The automatic passenger counter uses some technological methods such as:
Infrared Lights
One way how automatic passenger counters work efficiently is by the use of infrared lights, which are strategically placed above the doorways of the transport vehicles. Infrared light is an electromagnetic radiation energy that cannot be seen using human eyes but can be mostly felt as heat. A beam of infrared light is shone downwards, in a way showing how the beam was broken to determine whether the passenger was entering or disembarking the transit vehicle. Each and every time the beam is broken, it is recorded. The infrared technology is mostly used since it is cheap and its installation is quite straightforward. Its level of accuracy is up to 80% compared to the old techniques with accuracy levels of about 20%.
Video Counting
In video counting techniques, it involves cameras that are used for logging numbers of passengers boarding and disembarking. With the video counting, which uses complex algorithms and camera imaging, experts in charge of operating the system can verify the counting accurately by playing back the video. The automatic passenger counter computer can also be connected with an on-board GPS network that can tell the vehicle’s location. This provides efficient data that can be used to analyze how the system is utilized based on time, directions of transport, and lastly, location. One can hop over to this site to acquire more information about advanced people counting technologies based on video counting and also get products related to automatic passenger counter systems. The video people counting system level of accuracy is about 98%.
Advantages of Automatic Passenger Counter
There are many merits about the automatic passenger counter ranging from functioning reasons to price. Various advantages are that it increases the fare collected, monitors passengers, and also saves the time of training people to manually count the passengers. Also, by using the automatic passenger counter, the transport system company acquires information about scheduling and making service-related decisions.
An automatic passenger counting system by itself gets vital information, but once the GPS system is incorporated, the transport system company gets to locate where the transit vehicle is and also provides the number of passengers on it. With the automatic passenger counting system, the transport will significantly benefit and improve.