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Published by Lana Dojcinovski on
Our Danish partner ATKI has recently been contacted by the Municipality of Vejle for their next big project. The client needed to count the number of people moving through Vejle's central urban space of Rådhustorvet and the adjacent pedestrian street, Nørregade. The main purpose was to be able to easily and effectively measure the attractiveness of special events in the urban space and understand how they affect the traffic flow. Interestingly, it was also done in connection to the Tour de France 2022 – where Vejle played a central role as a host city. They also had the future in mind, when the city would organise different social and cultural events, attracting both residents and visitors.
ATKI has been offering a wide range of people counting and occupancy statistics solutions – from cameras and infrared sensors to pressure plates and inductive loops. The solution chosen as the best fit for the project was GoodVision Live Traffic, as it analyzes camera streams in real-time, sending alarms to transport management systems instantly. In this particular case, two cameras were installed on each side of the roof of Vejle Town Hall overlooking the square and one additional camera was placed above the pedestrian street nearby. The cameras were linked to a central GoodVision data collection unit connected to our platform Video Insights.
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‘’ATKI has delivered and installed the camera-based counting system, which provides us with counting data in real-time from five selected locations in the municipality. Data is forwarded to our server and integrated with our BI dashboard for a live display of the current occupancy and traffic flow. At the same time, we have access to the historical data e.g. subsequent analysis of visitor trends, comparison of different periods, etc.”(Jette Vindum, Coordinator Urban Development and Architecture, Vejle Municipality)
The software part – data visualisation
Once the counting cameras were set up and the hardware part configured by ATKI's technicians, the system got connected to GoodVision Video Insights. In the platform, a digital copy ("digital twin") of the relevant traffic situation is created, and the machine learning algorithm automatically identifies, counts and classifies traffic objects (pedestrians, cyclists, cars, etc.) with detailed directional mapping of their movements.
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Vejle Municipality wanted data forwarded to their server so that live OD events could go directly to their platform. GoodVision Video Insights enables storing data about counts and movements in the cloud. This possibility makes it easy to perform retroactive traffic analysis (like going back to a specific day and counting bicycles on the pavement or uncovering dwell time per pedestrian or vehicle in a specific area). They realised that the possibilities are many once the system is set up and data collected.
3 additional traffic counting locations in Vejle Municipality
In addition to the two counting locations in the heart of Vejle, ATKI created a further 3 counting locations for Vejle Municipality, where the focus was a combination of people, bicycle and car counting: Kongernes Jelling (museum), Jelling v/ Byens Hus and Egtved, the road Aftensang.
The data units which were embedded in PCs were supplied in a weatherproof cabinet so that traffic data could be delivered 24 hours a day – in this case via 'JSON for MQTT' protocol – to the customer's Azure server. All of that, regardless of whether the outdoor temperature was -25 °C or even +45 °C. Any data interruptions would be automatically reported to ATKI's technicians, who could then diagnose the problem via remote access and solve it quickly, with the least possible inconvenience to the customer.
Collected traffic data was immediately available in GoodVision Video Insights via visually intuitive charts and graphs. On top of that, the raw data could also be exported for use in an external Business Intelligence platform, such as Microsoft's Power BI in this particular case.
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We wanted to know more about how our solution and team performed
Their client was initially choosing between different suppliers, but Live Traffic was the one that met their expectations fully. In fact, GoodVision offers a complete solution which can be tailored based on customers’ existing infrastructure and specific needs.
‘’GoodVision is a powerful addition to our traffic counting solutions. We are excited about all the possibilities Live Traffic offers and want to implement more of these in the future’’
(Erik Damgaard, Sales and R&D Manager ATKI)
Another advantage recognised by the client was the units being delivered promptly as agreed beforehand. Even though everything was handled at a distance, the cooperation between the ATKI R&D team responsible for installation and our technical support was particularly smooth. They embrace our team’s professional and flexible approach. And that is exactly what we want to keep as our distinguishing feature at GoodVision.
You can find the original article published by ATKI on their website
