Odense Municipality is the fourth most populous municipality in Denmark. As the birth city of the famous fairytale poet H.C. Andersen, the city prides itself on being the city of fairytales in Denmark. The city offers, among other things, a beautiful scenery, exciting museums and attractions as well as a 3 km long shopping street.Read the case and find out how Odense Municipality improves the use of the shopping street with Vemcount.
"We’ve been satisfied with our collaboration with Vemco Group, which has shown us that it’s possible to reliably and professionally monitor pedestrians on our shopping street. We see a great potential in developing and running our city better based on the insights that Vemco Group has given us."
Challenge
Odense Municipality’s challenge consisted of two parts. Being able to access insights on how the citizens and visitors of Odense use the city, and act on these insights based on a valid and factual ground of decision-making rather than a gut feeling. Odense Municipality raised the following questions:
How are we able to measure traffic in the shopping street’s testing area 24 hours a day and use this knowledge in strategic as well as operational decision-making?
How do events influence the number of visitors in the city?
How do we ensure the city spaces are optimally designed?
Solution
To solve the challenge that Odense Municipality faced, it required sensors that provide accurate measurements of visitors on the shopping street, in all kinds of weather, day or night. We have fixed this issue by using sensors that cover heights up to 20 meters regardless of weather or temperature conditions.
To measure how the citizens and visitors of Odense use the shopping street, we cover all relevant entrances and exits.
We have also implemented advanced height filtration to separate children from adults in the counts.
The sensors are integrated with Vemcount, allowing Odense Municipality to follow the number of pedestrians in real-time via an online dashboard, while selected employees receive daily reports that provide a visual and easily understandable overview of the measurements from hour to hour, day to day.
"We wanted a central solution that could cover all of our department stores in Denmark. We wanted the same system and a hosted solution but managed from one place. It was also a requirement from the beginning that the solution was able to count very accurately. And Vemcount has worked perfectly."
Lasse L. Mohrsen - Loss Prevention Manager, Magasin Du Nord
"Over the years, we’ve tested a handful of different people counting solutions, which unfortunately have disappointed us at every turn. Finally, with help from Vemco Group, we’ve found the right solution. A valid and good quality solution ensuring that we can optimize our business and measure the performance of our stores (…)."
Henrik Wieben - Country Manager, HiFi Klubben Denmark
"We know from the authorities that the queues in supermarkets are a critical place with regard to contagion. As a researcher, I am used to working with data from buildings and people’s movements. It suddenly struck me that if we can give people a visual real-time view of how close they are to each other in the queues, we might encourage them to increase the distance to one another."
Mikkel Baun Kjærgaard - Professor at SDU
