AI to help avoid busiest carriages

[whole diary]

[Surrey 455]

SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) have today tweeted this

We're trialling new AI tech which would help reduce overcrowding, boost customer comfort and convenience and facilitate social distancing.
Read all about our occupancy app trial in @thetimes.

Unfortunately that article is behind a paywall however a commenter has helpfully found another link.

From Rail UK^▸ (United Kingdom)

South Western Railway (SWR) customers will be able to avoid overcrowded carriages under plans for technology that provides real-time information about the busiest trains.

The innovative system uses onboard CCTV^▸ (Closed Circuit Tele-Vision) cameras to anonymously ‘count’ the number of passengers in each carriage in real-time. The system is currently in trial mode, with the company planning to make the data immediately available to customers via the SWR app and website, allowing them to make decisions even before they arrive at the station.

The trail is timely, as travel restrictions ease and the railway maximises efforts to allow customers to travel with confidence again. As SWR welcomes passengers back, it hopes the new technology will help customers to maintain social distancing and avoid overcrowding.

The enhanced information is the result of a collaboration between SWR, AI technology company PoS Insights, and on-board Wi-Fi provider Icomera.

The innovative system connects to existing CCTV cameras to capture, analyse and report occupancy data in real time in the form of a RAG^▸ (Red, Amber, Green (as in traffic light signals), or Radstock Action Group, depending on context) status. The system is currently being trialled behind the scenes on SWR’s Desiro fleet, travelling from London to Basingstoke, Portsmouth, Southampton and Weymouth. SWR plans to make it customer facing and roll it out across their Class 444 and 450 fleets as soon as possible, and ultimately network-wide.

Thameslink trains have internal displays showing how busy each carriage is (based upon weight I believe). I have a feeling that their platform displays may also show a more basic version. I don't know if that data is available on their app though.

[paul7575]

SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) Desiros had a passenger load measuring system already, I believe most just use load weighing, but a subset of them also have Infra Red counters above the doorways which was explained as being used as a calibration check of the weighing system.

Must be a significant amount of processing to use ordinary cctv given the way the various camera’s views must overlap each other...

Paul

[stuving]

Ignoring the reference to AI as I always do (it could mean anything or nothing), is there anything new here? It's been offered as standard equipment for trains by several suppliers for ages - e.g. Petards announcing their contract with Hitachi in 2016:

Petards announces that it has secured an additional framework contract and two “Call Off” contracts with Hitachi Rail Europe Limited to supply Automatic Passenger Counting Systems.

The new "Call Off" contracts are for the East Coast Main Line as part of the Intercity Express Programme and the Great Western Railway West of England service, the value of which are in excess of €1.2m and will be supplied over the next 3 years.
Commenting on the award, Petards Chairman Raschid Abdullah said;

"The board of Petards is delighted that we continue to develop our long term relationship with Hitachi. These two exciting projects further enhance our position as a leading supplier to the rail industry and strengthen the Group’s present order book for delivery in 2017, 2018 and into 2019.”

The GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) requirement for 165s and 166s was I think only giving information to staff. But the one for Hitachi was to meet the IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project. This will offer more capacity on routes, save money, give a consistent and safe service and meet customer requirements. Intended to replace HSTs.) requirement, and that did have to feed into the on-board PIS^▸ (Passenger Information System):

TS1931 The PIS must utilise the data from the passenger counting system to indicate to passengers within the IEP Train the status of the occupancy of each IEP Vehicle.

However ... despite APCS being described as mainstream kit, not in any way experimental, are any on-board systems actually working in the full sense - being seen by passengers who can make sense of what's shown, and trust it to direct them where to go to find emptier carriages? I don't believe the link to the PIS has been enabled on IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train - replacement for HSTs (manufactured by Hitachi in Kobe, Japan)). 

[Surrey 455]

Now on the SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) website

• In an industry-first trial, South Western Railway is using CCTV^▸ (Closed Circuit Tele-Vision) cameras and AI technology to continually and anonymously ‘count’ the number of passengers onboard individual train carriages.
• SWR has plans for the data to be made available to customers in real-time via the SWR app and website.
• The new tech will enable customers to maintain social distancing and deter overcrowding.

South Western Railway (SWR) customers could soon be able to see how busy individual train carriages are in real-time following the trial of an industry-first system that uses AI to provide capacity information.

The innovative system uses onboard CCTV cameras to anonymously ‘count’ the number of passengers in each carriage in real-time. The system is currently in trial mode, with the company planning to make the data immediately available to customers via the SWR app and website, allowing them to make decisions even before they arrive at the station.

The trial is timely, as travel restrictions ease and the railway maximises efforts to allow customers to travel with confidence again. As SWR welcomes passengers back, it hopes the new technology will help customers to maintain social distancing and avoid overcrowding.

The enhanced information is the result of a collaboration between SWR, AI technology company PoS Insights, and on-board Wi-Fi provider Icomera. The innovative system connects to existing CCTV cameras to capture, analyse and report occupancy data in real time in the form of a RAG^▸ (Red, Amber, Green (as in traffic light signals), or Radstock Action Group, depending on context) status.

The system is currently being trialled behind the scenes on SWR’s Desiro fleet, travelling from London to Basingstoke, Portsmouth, Southampton and Weymouth. SWR plans to make it customer facing and roll it out across their Class 444 and 450 fleets as soon as possible, and ultimately network-wide, if the pilot is successful.