COVID-19 Phase 2: SWARCO’s response to public transport needs
March 11th, 2020: The World Health Organization classifies COVID-19 as a pandemic. This has had a very serious impact also on the public transport sector.
Big worries are now also related to the so-called “re-opening” phase. There will be a lack of trust from users, due to the complexity of ensuring safety distances.
SWARCO proposes a new solution to reorganize the public transport service, minimizing the risk of infection among passengers and between driver and passengers. SWARCO’s new public transport concept monitors in real time the usage of buses and bus stops in order trigger action in case of critical situations.
The concept has also been designed for the passengers who are informed in real time about the occupancy level of buses so that they can plan their movements.
SWARCO’s new public transport system has the following features:
Management and monitoring of the bus occupancy level:
- to highlight the occupancy level to the driver, detected by counting systems;
- to offer an integrated tool for the selection of the occupancy level by the driver;
- to display the vehicle occupancy level to the control centre operator;
- to send information on the vehicle occupancy levels to external systems.
Passenger counting systems integrated with AVM or in stand-alone mode;
Occupancy level detection through Artificial Intelligence, based on video streaming analysis (using on-board CCTVs);
Body temperature and PPE detection;
Bus occupancy level displayed on bus stop signs.
Alessandro Murro, Managing Director of Turin-basedf SWARCO MIZAR, says: “In this particular moment, our aim is to be able to contribute to the further containment of the virus spread. We want to help keep our families and friends safe”.