SAGE delivered a smart cities solution to continually monitor visitor movement within two Victorian botanic garden locations using passive detection.
Alice Molan, Head of Development, Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria
“Working with SAGE Automation helps us to see the most popular sites and times within the Gardens. This ensures we’re getting accurate visitor data to plan for the future.”Challenge
Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria is dedicated to the conservation, display and enjoyment of plants and extends over two locations, Melbourne and Cranbourne. The gardens extend over a significant area (38 hectares and 363 hectares respectively) and are highly popular among visitors locally and from overseas.
Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria was looking for a way to streamline the process of collecting visitor numbers and movement trends in both gardens. Visitor numbers inform planning, maintenance and funding allocation, so a high level of accuracy is important.
In the past, visitor numbers were collected using a highly manual system at the entrance gates. The infrequency of this collection did not yield a comprehensive picture of visitor trends or movement within the gardens.
Solution
SAGE delivered a smart cities solution to continually monitor visitor movement within the two garden locations using passive detection. Thirteen SAGE Edge units were installed (nine devices in the Melbourne gardens and four in Cranbourne) utilising Bluetooth technology to detect visitors in both locations in real-time, and to determine the most popular paths within the gardens and providing data on dwell time.
The three types of Edge device units are either mains powered or by solar-charged batteries that run for extended periods without sunlight, ensuring the sites can be continually capturing pedestrian data. Three of the units at Cranbourne are solar-powered, with the other nine units on mains.
The smallest of these units are ideally suited for use in the heritage-listed gardens as they are visually discreet and have minimal impact on the garden landscape. The anonymous nature of the visitor data collected also suited the public spaces.
Since the initial deployment of the SAGE Edge devices, six cameras are being connected to the platform to enhance security and boost the reliability of data collection through video analytics of pedestrian movements.
Outcome
Thirteen SAGE Edge units provide continual data on visitor movement around the two garden locations. This enables Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria to deliver accurate data for public funding requirements, as well as informing planning to improve visitor experience.
The SAGE Smart Cities dashboard provides visitor data at a glance.
The data collected via the devices provides additional insights:
- Visitor trends over time
- Visitor movement in relation to weather
- Detection of return visitors
- Most popular paths within the gardens
- Most popular times to visit the gardens
- Video monitoring to provide enhanced security and analytics that increase the reliability of visitor movement data
SAGE Edge
SAGE Edge is a universal IoT capture device that offers a single solution to a wide range of applications.
Key benefits:
- Non-invasive technology that collects data and integrates with external data sources, reducing field sensor requirements and costs
- Detects Wi-Fi and undiscoverable Bluetooth devices not detected by traditional scanners
- Monitors real-time changes in device activity
- Communicates data to enable data processing and reporting on web-dashboards.
