Accuracy of crowd counting on events.

In places where crowds gather, it is especially important for event organisers to be able to make an accurate estimate of the number of people present. In order to invest in a particular method, a fair comparison of the counting methods is necessary.  Our earlier research strongly pointed to the need for calibration of different counting methods and a pooling and exploitation of knowledge and expertise among these organisers in order to help them professionalise and enable (further) growth. The project will result in a better understanding of technologies for visitor counting through a decision tree based on a fair comparison of (1) the number of attendees at a given time and (2) the number of unique visitors during the event which also provides guidelines for extrapolating the counts. The decision tree will result in, among other things, more accurate predictions, impact analyses, deployment of resources and a better choice of visitor counts based on accuracy.  Results Context and objective Mapping visitor numbers at events has become more important than ever since the corona crisis. Having a clear view of how many visitors are present at a venue is the basis of crowd management. However, measuring crowds is challenging. Organisers, security personnel, security forces and other stakeholders often talk about varying visitor numbers at the same event. Technological counting methods also contradict each other. The need for calibrations for different counting methods is high. This project systematically checked the accuracy of different counting methods. More specifically, this project investigated the employability and accuracy of manual click and quadrant counts, as well as that of four technological counting methods commonly used at events: camera counting, Wi-Fi counting, mobile data counting and radio wave counting. Test events Due to the corona crisis, the events sector went on lockdown for a long time and events could not take place at various times during the course of project. When the sector was allowed to restart, it was first in the form of test events that required government approval. In the next phase, events could go ahead subject to compliance with a limited maximum capacity. Since the summer, the deployment of a Covid Safe Ticket (CST) ensured that events could once again proceed in as normal a manner as possible at full capacity. The research team, together with the various counting method providers, chose to pool their knowledge and expertise and deploy them to ensure a safe restart of the events sector. For this reason, we conducted measurements at test events, events with limited capacity as well as events that used a CST. Moreover, different types of events participated as test cases in this project, which also resulted in a lot of variation in terms of content. In this way, the difficult situation the events sector was in gave an extra dimension to this project and (often in consultation with the National Crisis Centre) we were able to support the events sector in difficult and uncertain times. Counting Guide The results of the research were compiled in a handy tool available on the website www.telwijzer.be. You can use the Counting Guide to determine the most appropriate counting method(s) for your event.

Keywords:IMPACT ANALYSIS, EVENTS, PUBLIC SAFETY, CROWD DENSITY MONITORING

Disciplines:Intelligent transportation systems, Telecommunication and remote sensing, Automation and control systems, Occupational health and safety

Project type:Collaboration project