Odense Municipality improves the use of the shopping street with Vemcount

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."

Jacob Høffer Larsen Project Manager, Smart City Odense

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:

  1. 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?

  2. How do events influence the number of visitors in the city?

  3. 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.