Practical Automated Video Analytics for Crowd Monitoring and Counting

Abstract

Video surveillance is gaining popularity in numerous applications, including facility management, traffic monitoring, crowd analysis, and urban security. Despite the increasing demand for closed-circuit television (CCTV) and related infrastructure in public spaces, there remains a notable lack of readily-deployable automated surveillance systems. In this study, we present a low-cost and efficient approach that integrates the use of computational object recognition to perform fully-automated identification, tracking, and counting of human traffic on camera video streams. Two software implementations are explored and the performance of these schemes is compared. Validation against controlled and non-controlled real-world environments is also demonstrated. The implementation provides automated video analytics for medium crowd density monitoring and tracking, eliminating labor-intensive tasks traditionally requiring human operation, with results indicating great reliability in real-life scenarios.