People Counting System Market

Increasing security concerns at public places, high demand of people counting systems from transport sector and increasing investment by key players in people counting system to develop advanced and innovative people counting devices are the prime factors driving the growth of global people counting system market. However, high costs involved in the advanced people counting systems is expected to pose a restraint for the adoption of people counting system by consumers in the coming years. Technical limitation of people counting system is expected to act as a challenge for the key market players in the coming years.

Drivers

Increasing security concerns at public places

The concerns regarding security in public places, especially in crowded places are increasing continuously. Effectively managing and controlling crowd in public places has become an important paradigm for the security authorities of every region across the globe. People counting systems are increasingly getting adopted to ensure public safety and avoid threatening situations in crowded public areas. People counting systems help event organizers to estimate the number of people present in any particular venue, which enable them to devise counter plans when the venue limit gets exceeded. People counting system have a number of applications in video surveillance and public resources management. Recently, there has been a rise in the number of events, concerts, and night clubs. Governments of multiple countries impose rules regarding the maximum capacity of events and public gatherings such as sporting events or live concerts. In such cases, a people counting system becomes mandatory for the avoidance of breaking the law. People counting solutions that comprise overhead CCTV cameras provide video occupancy counting, real-time analysis of previous counts, queue monitoring as well as count validation which helps event organizers meet capacity regulations. There has been an increase in the adoption of people counting systems due to the benefits they offer in terms of security and safety in public events. Thus, the increasing security concerns at public places are driving the people counting system market.

High demand of people counting systems from transport sector

The transport industry has seen steady growth over the last decade and this trend is expected to continue. Increasing investments in railways by governments coupled with several other socio-economic factors have fueled the growth of the transportation industry across the globe. Public transport is increasingly becoming popular among the masses of multiple countries around the world. There is an increasing demand for customer-centric products from the transportation sector. Speed, safety, price, reliability, and convenience are important factors for passengers when selecting any mode of public transport. The growing urbanization has driven the need for advances in the conventional transportation system. With 60% of the global population estimated to live in urban areas by 2030, public transport systems are moving towards smart mobility. Passengers demand accurate, real-time information that puts the power of choice in their hands. Automatic passenger counting systems have offered multiple benefits to public transport systems and are expected to transform the transportation industry in the near future. Passenger counting systems are being installed in trains, buses, subway stations, and onboard vehicles. Passenger counting systems have offered mutual benefits for both transport systems and passengers, enhancing the efficiency of the network and consequently offering greater user satisfaction. Passenger analytics, combined with passenger counting systems, have enabled public transport systems to monitor load points, create more accurate travel times, and allocate vehicles according to demand. In terms of labor, passenger counting systems have enabled organizations to schedule maintenance according to vehicle use, minimizing unnecessary work, and vehicle downtime. Passenger counting systems have offered multiple benefits to the transportation industry which has driven its demand in the sector. This rising demand for people counting systems from the transportation sector is expected to drive the people counting system market during the forecast period.

Restraint

High costs involved in the advanced people counting systems

Although people counting systems have a number of benefits, their advanced components and products are often expensive. Advanced systems such as the thermal sensor-based people counting systems and Wi-Fi-based people counting systems are available at high rates in the market due to the inclusion of high-cost components and features such as thermal sensors and Wi-Fi. The high cost of people counting systems has made them unaffordable for the local retailers and small players in the hospitality and transportation markets. Moreover, lack of awareness among business owners coupled with low return on investment for small-scale business owners have further affected the adoption of people counting systems. Further, non-retail stores, private transport systems, lowly funded public events and restaurants are not able to afford expensive people counting features which have resulted in limited adoption of people counting in these markets. Therefore, there is a high need for developing advanced yet inexpensive people counting systems. Thus, the high costs involved in advanced people counting systems is expected to hamper the growth of the people counting system market.

Opportunities

Rise of big data analytics

The rise of big data analytics has created an opportunity for the players active in the people counting system market. Big data analytics is the extraction of actionable insights from big data. Big data analytics deals with large volumes of unprocessed data to uncover hidden patterns, correlations, and other insights. There has been an increase in the adoption of data analytics by businesses across multiple industry verticals which has triggered high investment for the development and research of big data analytics. Data analytics has offered increased speed and improved efficiency to businesses in terms of processing large volumes of data. Big data technologies such as Hadoop and cloud-based analytics have offered significant cost reductions while improving the decision-making abilities of business owners. Big data analytics play an integral role in deriving insights from the data gathered by people counting systems. People counting is often the first step to obtaining big data for many facilities, but this merely gives raw data. Retailers, libraries, museums, and restaurants need the next step of analytics in order to have continual growth within their business. Big data analytics enables businesses to fully understand customer traffic data with indicators such as queue length, average length of visit, dwell times, weather trends, and conversion rates by processing the data obtained from the people counting systems. These indicators enable businesses to forecast customer behavior and improve sales significantly. The growing development of big data analytics presents a significant opportunity for the growth of people counting system market.

Challenge

Technical Limitation of people counting system

Although people counting systems help business owners across different verticals to gain valuable insights in terms of their customers, these systems do have certain technical limitations which pose major challenges for the growth of the people counting system market. People counting systems are available in different types and each type has some technical limitations: mainly in terms of accuracy. The accuracy of horizontal people counting systems is significantly affected by people entering at the same time which can cause errors in the end results. Moreover, thermal sensor-based people counting solutions offer low resolution and lower field of vision which makes it complex to determine customer characteristics in real time. Moreover, environmental variations significantly affect the accuracy of thermal sensors as well as computer vision-based people counting systems. External variations such as rain and fog along with variations in lighting and shadows are expected to alter the accuracy of these systems. Similarity in the background along with variability and unpredictability in the appearance of people is expected to affect the accuracy of people counting systems. In the case of video-based people counting systems, the counting accuracy can be affected by shadows, background, and varying light levels. These technical challenges pose a notable challenge to the growth of people counting system market.