Congestrian: Monitoring pedestrian traffic and congestion

We propose the development and deployment in the wild of a sensor network that will monitor pedestrian traffic rates and congestion. Three types of sensor are envisaged; fixed video cameras, wearable pedometers and GPS devices. The data captured data will facilitate applications such as route planning avoiding congested areas and warning the elderly and infirm of particularly congested areas. Processing of rates of travel and destinations will enable different types of pedestrian to be identified and plotted dynamically such as tourists, shoppers and individuals simply trying to get from A to B quickly. Looking beyond the immediate empirical scope of this workshop, we indicate how such a system could be deployed to take advantage of the benefits afforded by the Personal Smart Space of the EU FP7 PERSIST project and the Community Smart Space of the EU FP7 SOCIETIES project.