Introduction
This section is intended to help partners and end users understand the inherent problems associated with people counting for occupancy numbers. I.e. counting IN and counting OUT in order to calculate the number of people left in an area, room or building.
This guide is not Irisys specific and the majority of the information provided applies to any counting system/installation.
What is Occupancy Counting?
Occupancy is the counting of the number of people in an area. This could be a single room, the floor of a building or increasingly the number of people in a whole office block, museum, theater, train station, concert or sports arena.
This information may be required for safety concerns such as floor loading in an office block or overcrowding and fire evacuation concerns at public events. The occupancy data can also be used to ensure staff are sent to the busiest locations, as and when required.
Additionally, occupancy data can be used as a measurement of how well a building is being utilized, which in turn can help with energy saving decisions, and can form the basis of ongoing strategic decisions like green-lighting a new building or closing lesser used building(s).
Occupancy counting is inherently different to simply counting flows of people through an entrance or doorway.
Continue to next page: Methods of Counting for Occupancy.
Jump straight to Issues with occupancy counting.