"Following the guidelines imposed in the covid crisis, we were only allowed to receive a limited number of visitors per square meter," says Paul Wijnants, coordinator of technical services at the domain. "As a public domain with free access, we had to rely on the count of people entering or leaving the domains to do so. The fact that we have two access roads presented an additional challenge in this regard."

Emergency Solution

From our expertise in monitoring, we were happy to collaborate on a solution. In collaboration with Total-e we therefore developed our own crowd barometer. Through the placement of gates above the access roads, people were counted by our system as they entered and exited. We connected that to video screens that displayed real-time park capacity on site. Those screens have since been removed, but the​ Open Air Museum website was also connected to our software, so you can still consult online  how busy the park and playground are. For the parking lots, we applied a similar method, tailored to the opening and closing of the barriers present.

Customer-oriented use

The City of Oostende also used our crowd barometer for a while to monitor the number of walkers in shopping streets during the covid pandemic. But while the city no longer needed it afterwards, Bokrijk was keen to offer an extra service to its visitors via the system.

"We saw a lot of potential in the system and wanted to develop it further for permanent use," says Paul Wijnants. "Especially in the summer period, the crowd meter at the playground is an added value for visitors to plan their visit. For the car parks, we especially notice an added value when we organize events."

Insight into visitor numbers

Not only does the crowd barometer offer visitors insight into how busy the grounds are, our system also gives Open Air Museum staff insights about visitor numbers. By linking our counts to weather measurements, for example, they can precisely measure the effect of sun or rain.

Paul agrees, "For our statistics, that is very important. Moreover, we also try to work future-oriented on the basis of that data. We know, for example, that the parking lot at the playground fills up quickly in good weather, so we have to provide alternatives at events. On the other hand, we make sure that garbage and litter is cleaned up more often, because the garbage cans fill up faster when it is busy. We also make sure that our first aid service has more manpower."

"So from the data that Calculus provides, we already get a lot of information that we use to optimize our operation. And we also continue to improve the system itself with them."