How People Counting Can Benefit Your Building Commercially, people counting technologies are used in many applications such as airport security, hotels, manufacturing, business offices, and travel hubs.

Maggie Parker, Market Researcher Scanalytics

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People counting technologies are relatively established in the era of smart locations and buildings. While people counting seems rather self-explanatory, these technologies includes floor sensors, video counters, beam counters, mobile and WiFi tracking, and as well as thermal tracking technologies, and are used by a number of different industries to determine how people visit and interact within physical spaces. Their general perception is most widely connected with retail stores calculating sale conversions. However, these technologies are capable of so much more than what their name entails.

Retail

Taken in their perceived context of retail, people counting technologies are capturing marketing insights through foot traffic data, such as dwell time, daily visits, and the routes and patterns consumers are navigating throughout a store. Retailers are testing new products and their display effectiveness based on the amount of traffic and engagement a key display receives on a consistent basis. People counting technologies also allow business to predict peak traffic times across days and even seasons, enabling them to optimize staff schedules to save money on wages, and improve the level of customer service shoppers receive in-store. Dwell times or other behaviors can be programmed with these technologies to trigger notifications to a staff member when someone paces several times in front of a display or stands in one spot for a significant period, indicating the customer may need assistance. The notifications increase both the customer experience and the effectiveness of the helping staff. Lastly, people counting technologies allow retailers to see when and where long lines and bottlenecks occur, enabling the company to optimize their in-store floor plan.

Trade Shows & Events

Similarly, trade shows and events can use people counting technologies to gather actionable data on their performance. Like retail stores, trade show booths can test new products and displays, optimize the schedules of their staff, trigger notifications to engage attendees in their visit, and optimize the overall design of their booth layout. These technologies are also helping trade show exhibitors and event organizers gauge the effectiveness of pre-show promotions, optimize presentation schedules, and measure the engagement attendees had with the different exhibiting booths.

Healthcare

Branching outside of the most associated industries, people counting technologies are also becoming widely adopted in the healthcare field. With many of these technologies, such as floor sensors or video sensors, nurses can monitor movement in a hospital or nursing home room, as well as be notified if there is a fall or someone needs attention. Hospitals and nursing homes can measure the time of day when patients and residents are most active, enabling them to make important staffing decisions and ensure optimal care for their patients.

Commercial

Commercially, people counting technologies are used in many applications such as airport security, hotels, manufacturing, business offices, and travel hubs. The technologies provide incredible benefits within security, as business owners can set regular business hours, monitor activity within the normal period, and receive notifications when a person enters outside of the specified hours. Hotels can use the people counting data to optimize their floor plans and enhance the visitor experience starting at check-in through the entirety of their visit. Manufacturers have a high need for people counting analytics to determine which areas of the plant floor are being used to save on energy costs in obsolete areas and understand how their employees are interacting with their work cells to eliminate inefficiencies in their tasks. Corporate offices are also investing in people counting technologies so their leadership can benchmark and optimize the best times for meetings, as well as the effectiveness of meetings and presentations to create a more engaged and productive workforce.

Overall, people counting technology are much more advanced and widely adopted than may be perceived. The use cases are truly endless as every segment of real estate is looking to understand and improve the performance of their space. With the broad range of technologies available, businesses must determine which solution is most effective with their strategy and use the data to make real changes that keep their company in and ahead of the game.