PCS Public Counting System
Purpose
To ensure safety, operational effectiveness, and data-driven decision-making, the public, or passengers, in another term known as the people counting system (PCS), is an intelligent solution designed to manage and monitor passenger flow across a range of transportation environments. PCS was initially implemented in the Kochi Water Metro and has shown impressive results in automating occupancy tracking, reducing crowding, and enhancing the experience of passengers on ferries and pontoons.
However, PCS is not limited to water-based transit. It is flexible architecture and scalable design that make it useful for deployment in colleges, government offices, buses, rail transit, airports, and smart city terminals—anywhere accurate people-counting and coordinated passenger movement are crucial. The system can also be smoothly integrated wherever ticketing systems are in place, enabling cross-verification between tickets issued and actual footfall for enhanced accuracy, security, and operational control.
Core Features
Advanced capabilities designed to revolutionize passenger flow management and operational efficiency
On-site observation
The system constantly observes the number of people present and updates the count in live, ensuring accurate occupancy tracing across college campuses, auditoriums, and program venues. This real-time data supports effective crowd management, helps maintain safe capacity levels, and provides valuable viewpoints into space usage during events, lectures, or daily operations.
Automated Capacity Control
In a situation of transit, the system impulsively enforces boarding limits on the basis of predefined capacity thresholds, ensuring that no additional passengers board once the set limit is reached. It notifies both operators and passengers via live alerts or display systems, assisting in maintaining order during busy hours. By decreasing dependence on manual monitoring, the solution minimizes human error and reinforces compliance with crowd safety regulations.
BLE-Based Movement Detection & Terminal Coordination
The system leverages BLE tags to automatically detect the presence of approaching vehicles or vessels, triggering relevant station-side processes such as gate operations and public announcements. It smoothly detects incoming units, synchronizes real-time status with the control room, and maintains a live activity log. This automation reduces the requirement for manual intervention and ensures that passenger information systems operate precisely and efficiently.
Centralized Command & Data Sync
All counting input is transmitted in live to a centralized dashboard or control system, providing a live view of occupancy across all monitored units. It employs operators to trace the status of spaces or vehicles, detect patterns through historical data, and make informed decisions based on usage trends. It also helps in monitoring alert management for deviations from abnormal occupancy rates or threshold violations. It can also be effortlessly integrated with existing platforms like SCADA, BMS, or ERP systems for effective operating supervision and coordination.
Multi-Zone Counting & Segmentation
The system helps zone-wise or section-wise counting within vehicles or buildings, enabling comprehensive monitoring across areas like front and rear bus doors or individual train compartments. This fine-grained tracing allows for precise analysis of crowd movement, comprising boarding and disembarking patterns, as well as entry and exit usage trends. It also facilitates specialized monitoring in sensitive or restricted zones, giving valuable insights for execution planning, safety enforcement, and space optimization.
Alerts & Notifications System Integration
This system can initiate live alerts through various mediums, including sms, push, loudspeakers, display screens, and control room consoles. Alerts may be set for different instances like overcrowding, intrusion into unauthorised areas, abnormal movement patterns, or system faults like connectivity or data transmission errors. This is to provide rapid response and efficient administration of both normal operations and possible safety threats.
How PCS solves real problems
Real-world implementations demonstrating measurable impact and operational excellence
Kochi Water Metro
Challenge:
Kochi Water Metro, India's initial integrated water-based public transport system, faced operational challenges in tracing real-time passenger flow on electric ferries. Manual headcounts by onboard staff leads to inaccurate data, delays in decision-making, and difficulty enforcing passenger capacity limits during peak hours.
Solution with PCS:
Passenger Counting System (PCS) was installed at ferry entry and exit points to capture live passenger movement. The system synced with the control center to display real time occupancy, triggered alerts upon reaching capacity thresholds, and logged detailed boarding/disembarking data for analysis.
Outcome:
- Enabled accurate, real-time tracking of passenger occupancy across vessels
- Improved operational efficiency by automating boarding limit enforcement
- Reduced manual workload for ferry staff and improved safety compliance
- Enhanced scheduling decisions using terminal-wise & time-based occupancy trends
Science Museum
Challenge:
A general interest science museum with several exhibit galleries and interactive areas suffered from regular overcrowding on school trips, weekend spikes, and special events. In the absence of real-time tracking, staff members had no easy way of controlling crowd movement, maintaining visitor safety, or maximizing exhibit utilization based on patterns of footfall.
Solution with PCS:
Passenger Counting System (PCS) was implemented at entry/exit points and zone-level gates throughout galleries, auditoriums, and public spaces. The system gave real-time headcounts, created visitor movement patterns, and activated alerts for crowded zones—allowing staff to actively re-route foot traffic ahead of time.
Outcome:
- Enabled live monitoring of visitor flow across all exhibition zones
- Improved crowd safety with real-time alerts in high-traffic areas
- Offered insightful analytics for exhibit popularity and visitor engagement
- Improved visitor experience through better space utilization and smoother movement
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