APC - Automatic Passenger Count
APC comes in several flavors, with different camera technologies which are applied to the requested functionalities - being in-vehicle APC or pedestrian APC. We work with several vendors which feed us the data, from which we aggregate the valuable output, such as corrected payment collected, deviation checks and corrections, and finally a correct manifest which is pushed to the captain, operator and even authorities if requested.
Where hardware and Software unite.
Today, cameras combined with advanced machine learning are able to capture and count passengers in many challenging environments. Even through very tinted car windows, a camera can separate an adult from a child in the back-seat of a car with precision levels over 99% accuracy. And larger groups of pedestrians embarking or disembarking a ship can easily be tracked and counted for. Seamless play a key role in processing this counting data, and particularly in terms of producing correctional data - which also is used for continuous re-training. If a reading has a low confidence (i.e. the reading flags that there might be a dog in the back-seat, and not a hairy human), the deckhand receives a red-flag on his or hers mobile Seamless device, inspects the identified vehicle and enters the correct data. APC plugged with Seamless is the perfect unity of software and hardware.
What is APC all about?
APC stands for Automatic Passenger Count, and comes in many flavors. Buses and trains have been equipped with sensor systems for APC for many years, while cameras have slowly caught up as AI and machine-learning have APC proven precision and efficiency. Infrared cameras and lights can "see" through tinted windows, and thus be able to count passengers in the backseat of cars. For pedestrians, APC cameras are popular to track moving patterns and flow of persons, particularly in cities and malls etc. And now also at ports, counting large groups of pedestrians embarking and disembarking ships in real-time, and also distinguish between children and adults - which is important for the safety requirements onboard ferries.
For regular pedestrian count, no. It essentially requires a camera-setup and a monthly processing fee. For in-vehicle count, more advanced infrared hardware and infrastructure is required. Whatever APC solution you choose, the cost and precision of APC far surpasses any manual counting cost and precision.
For regular pedestrian count, a pole / mast to mount the camera to cover the actual area is normally enough. PoE-cabling and a safe location to setup the on-prem server. For in-vehicle count with IR-technology, the requirements are slightly more detailed when it comes to poles, height, cabling etc for the cameras and lights. But nothing extra-ordinary, just more specified.
APC requires an on-prem server for the image processing, in terms of blurring and pixelating faces to anonymize individuals. All such processing have to happen locally before the data is pushed to the cloud, and thus be compliant to GDPR and privacy regulations. All our camera partners are fully compliant.
Other questions?
Feel free to reach out to us.