South Western Railway

SITUATION

Reassuring Passengers Post-Covid

As passengers gradually return to public transport after experiencing considerable uncertainty, transport operators are looking for the most effective ways to improve passenger confidence and journey experience while minimising the spread of Covid.

As with other aspects of the industry’s post-Covid recovery, giving passengers added certainty about their journey is best achieved through digitalisation – specifically by enabling passengers to monitor the occupancy of trains in real-time, using their digital devices.

The ability to effectively gauge occupancy levels inside vehicles makes it easier for passengers to choose less crowded environments to travel in, ensuring that they are safely socially distanced throughout their journey.

To see how this use case could be realised, SWR selected Glimpse Analytics to develop an innovative proof of concept, leveraging the power of Icomera’s onboard hardware platform.

solution

An Exciting Collaboration Between Global Technology Leaders

Glimpse’s onboard software connects to existing video surveillance cameras to capture, analyse, and report occupancy data in real-time in the form of a RAG (Red/Amber/Green) status.

Passengers can see how busy individual train carriages are at any time via station information screens, a downloadable app, and SWR’s website – effectively helping passengers maintain social distancing and avoid overcrowding.

The software runs natively on the same Icomera X-Series wireless connectivity platform already used to support other systems, such as Passenger Wi-Fi. With no need for additional hardware, the video-based passenger counting solution can be installed ‘over the air’ quickly and efficiently, offering considerable time and cost savings compared to similar solutions.

Analytics information collected from onboard video feeds is converted to metadata and fed back to software integrated into the transport operator’s back-office system. Passenger privacy is protected, as all data collected by the system is fully anonymised and footage is not recorded or stored.

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A Timely Trial

In April 2021, Icomera began an exciting collaborative test pilot with Glimpse Analytics and SWR: A trial of an industryfirst software-based system that uses AI to provide realtime vehicle occupancy information.

“The tests offered an exciting proof of concept showing how Icomera’s technology can be leveraged to go beyond Wi-Fi…”

The trial, which took place on SWR’s Desiro fleet, travelling from London to Basingstoke, Portsmouth, Southampton, and Weymouth was particularly timely, as travel restrictions had begun to ease, and the railway maximised efforts to allow customers to travel with confidence again.

The tests offered an exciting proof of concept showing how Icomera’s technology can be leveraged to go beyond Wi-Fi and offer a host of operational and safety benefits to transport operators and their passengers.

To measure the system’s accuracy, SWR monitored passenger numbers on the bank holiday weekend of May 2021, which saw the highest number of passengers on board since the COVID-19 pandemic struck.