Footfall analytics in transportation
DSDi Flow, a journey analysis system for public transport, built on EMBIQ's OCKO people-flow technology for Eltcrac System, a Kraków-based security systems company. Small terminals in vehicles and at stops pick up anonymised Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signals from passengers' phones and turn them into data on routes, transfers and loads.
Technologies used
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, LTE, OpenWrt, industrial LTE routers, WebSocket, Django, MySQL, MongoDB, spatial databases, AWS
Tools
Jenkins, Jira, Confluence
5
Project members
13 months
Project length
IoT, Custom Software Development
Category
Transportation, Smart City
Branch
The challenge
Eltcrac System has worked in the security systems market since 1991 and has worked with EMBIQ since 2016, when EMBIQ built its DSDi Serwis platform for installation technicians. The next step was public transport. Organisers of urban and regional transport need to know more than how many people ride a bus: where passengers board and alight, which lines they change between, how long they wait for a connection and how loads vary by hour and day of the week. These patterns are hard to study with traditional methods, and without them it is difficult to plan routes, stops and timetables around real travel behaviour. Eltcrac wanted to offer transport organisers a product under its own DSDi brand without building the measurement technology from scratch. EMBIQ already had OCKO, its own system for analysing people flows, and adapted it to vehicles. The requirements were demanding: one small terminal per vehicle, easy to move to another bus when the fleet changes, working automatically around the clock and sending data wirelessly. The system could not store any data identifying a passenger, yet it had to recognise the same device across vehicles to measure transfers. The client also needed a web panel it could use on its own and room for custom features for individual transport organisers.
We are proud to call the infrastructure ours. With this program, it is possible to oversee device parameters and every piece of data goes through our solution. Personally, the major challenge was to implement spatial databases. The program can be operated, accessed, ported to various types of devices which results in integration with external systems, and it is possible to customize the system for WLAN devices with Open WRT.
Key Features
- One small terminal per vehicle, mains or battery powered, easy to move between vehicles without permanent installation
- Detection of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signals from passengers' smartphones, each device given an anonymised identifier that cannot be reversed
- Firmware for industrial OpenWrt-based LTE routers, suitable for vehicles and outdoor installation at stops
- Wireless data transfer to the cloud 24 hours a day, for any measurement period
- Web panel with real-time and historical data, filters by terminal and time, hourly charts and transfers shown visually and as percentages
- Origin–destination analysis: flows between vehicles and zones, travel times and waiting times for connections
- Optional calibration against other passenger counters or camera data, and periodic analytical reports
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The result
Eltcrac offered DSDi Flow to organisers of public transport as a service based on EMBIQ's technology: EMBIQ supplied and activated the terminals, ran the platform and provided the analytical panel, while the client sold the product under its own DSDi Flow name. The data shows how passengers really travel between parts of a city, where they change vehicles and when, which helps adjust routes, stop locations and timetables, and supports discussions such as how neighbouring municipalities share the cost of lines that cross city limits. Because the terminals are small and portable, measurements do not require new infrastructure or high up-front investment. The solution was later featured in a published use case by the manufacturer of the routers it runs on. The partnership with Eltcrac has continued beyond DSDi Flow: EMBIQ still develops other DSDi software for the company.
- One portable terminal per vehicle, with no permanent installation and no new infrastructure
- Anonymised passenger data collected automatically, around the clock
- Transfers, travel times and loads by line, stop, hour and day of the week in one web panel
- Product sold by the client under its own DSDi Flow brand, with EMBIQ as technology owner
- Partnership with the client continuing for ten years, since 2016
In this project, the initiative was on our side, since the client was offered to receive a ready-made solution. The analytical panel and algorithms were developed completely from scratch. Delving into a new industry was very beneficial, considering the fact of earning the client s trust
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