Video Analytics in public life: What’s in it for me?

People movement – Video analytics can help build insights into the flow of people. Where are they going? By which route? On foot / bike / bike / scooter?

Traffic – With real time incident detection, you can respond immediately and redirect vehicles away from congestion and areas of high traffic. You can identify queues, bottlenecks and congestion, both on a regular and one-off basis – and re-route traffic accordingly.

Safety – In my first blog post, we considered the role video analytics can play in identifying slips, trips and falls. But in public spaces there are other important applications, like identifying the congregation of people in certain areas (e.g. sports fans), anti-social behaviour, aggression, and even the possession (or likely possession) of weapons. Triggers can alert the emergency services, or prompt road closures and diversions.

Inclusivity – How certain are you that the space you are responsible for is genuinely inclusive for all? Video analysis, interpreted by AI, can identify routes, paths or areas that people with limited mobility routinely avoid. Or provide insight into patterns of movement by people with wheelchairs, visual impairment or other disability. What could you implement to address these?