Abstract:
Paper presented at the 23rd Annual Southern African Transport Conference 12 - 15 July 2004 "Getting recognition for the importance of transport", CSIR International Convention Centre, Pretoria, South Africa. The National Land Transport Transition Act 2000 requires that Current Public Records
(CPTRs) be completed by each planning authority. The CPTRs consist of data on
infrastructure, fleet, timetables, routes, passenger volumes, etc regarding public transport in
the planning authorities region.
However this data is collected manually and therefore time consuming and subject to
inaccuracy. The main aim of this project is to explore possibilities of collecting most of the
data required for transport planning electronically.
A market survey was conducted to establish the need for automated passenger counting
systems. The results showed that indeed there is a need for automated passenger counting
systems.
This paper contains a technology scan on the automated passenger counting systems that
gives a basic understanding of these systems. Furthermore, an extensive research was
undertaken to identify automated passenger counting systems developers. Ten systems
developers where identified. A database of such developers was developed together with their
contact details.
Passenger counters can be categorized according to four groupings based on the key
technology used for counting.
The following groupings exist:
! Manual (Turnstiles)
! Infrared (IR) beams
! Infrared optic sensors
! Low ultrasonic frequency sensors, and
! Treadle mats. (Load cells)
! Video camera
A field trial was undertaken with Infodev on the City of Johannesburg’s Metrobus. The main
objective was to test the system on real life situation and its acceptability to passengers. It was
found that people did not notice the presence of the sensors on top of the door. Also the system
gave accuracy levels around 99%.
Description:
This paper was transferred from the original CD ROM created for this conference. The material on the CD ROM was published using Adobe Acrobat technology. The original CD ROM was produced by Document Transformation Technologies Postal Address: PO Box 560 Irene 0062 South Africa. Tel.: +27 12 667 2074 Fax: +27 12 667 2766 E-mail: doctech@doctech.co.za URL: http://www.doctech.co.za