BlueZoo Flow measures foot traffic over the course of a single day to track the visitors’ journeys from place to place in areas like large buildings, hotels, airports, or malls. Following visitor walking patterns in aggregate helps facilities managers better use public spaces.
Measuring activity
Flow characterizes foot traffic “journeys” by measuring how visitors move among N locations where a location is defined as a group of sensors. Journeys are different from “visits” because they measure the presence of visitors across groups of sensors. BlueZoo customers define groups of sensors to be used in each study. Journeys comprise a powerful analytics tool for anonymous measurement of foot traffic across large spaces.
Flow measures visitor patterns in three ways.
Correlation measures the fraction of visitors who have visited one location that have also visited another location. Correlation is independent of direction and whether other visits have been direct or indirect. Correlation generates N*(N-1) / 2 values for each time period.
Transition measures the fraction of visitors who transit from one location to another. Unlike Correlation, Transition is directional. Transition generates N*(N-1) values for each period, with separate values for each direction of transition.
Duration measures the duration of journeys to a collection of groups. For the time period under study, Duration measures the number of journeys that include 1 group, 2 groups, and N groups. Duration also measures the average journey duration for each of the N tranches.
Usage
One example of how to use BlueZoo Flow to show traffic flow within an area is by integrating data from an array of BlueZoo sensors. Here’s a general case, with multiple entrances and multiple interior points.
Measuring the probabilities that a visitor will take a particular path can inform decisions about signage, placement of tenants, and location rents. Even the location of parking or transportation entrances can dramatically impact consumer journeys through the space. Collecting this data over time can deliver important insights to hotel (or mall or airport or amusement park) operators.
BlueZoo measures the number of visitors that arrive at each entry point/entrance and progress to other locations, either on the interior or the exterior (other entry points/entrances).
Each location measures foot traffic with its own BlueZoo sensor. The more sensors employed, the finer the grain at which traffic flow is recorded.
BlueZoo can deliver transition data for visualization using third-party tools. Sankey diagrams are one popular option for visualizing such data. Another option is superimposing flow distributions on a physical map or floor plan, tracking the share of pedestrians that transition from one point on the map to an adjacent point.
The end result is immediate quantification of foot traffic. These measurements can be delivered for any desired timer period, whether an entire month, week, or day.
