The O2’s owners, AEG Europe, installed the system at main entrances to provide managers and tenants with hour-by-hour updates on the number of people in the 50,000-capacity building.
Ipsotek said its software was chosen because it can provide an accurate, automated headcount of both steady streams of visitors and the sudden influxes caused by high-profile events.
“We were impressed that Ipsotek could cover multiple entrances with a high degree of accuracy,” said Tim Rawlins, operations director at The O2.
“Naturally our principal reasons for wanting to know how many people are within The O2 concern health, safety and staffing levels, but as London’s major entertainment destination we also need to measure footfall for our tenants.”
Data collected by ADT cameras positioned above doorways is freely available to the venue’s operations room, and an automated system has been set up to send staff warning emails once pre-programmed capacity thresholds are reached.
Rawlins said the system has commercial benefits, too.
“We are able to export figures in convenient formats – including spreadsheets, graphs and pie charts – to a range of business customers who may want templates that tell them about footfall during particular periods,” he said.
Ipsotek describes its system, which converts busy CCTV footage into statistics, as one of the few that could deal with clusters of people sometimes walking through doorways in groups of three or more.
CEO Chris Gomersall said, “Few, if any, commercially available systems possess either the advanced analytics or the processing power to cope with the demanding conditions at The O2.
“We are delighted to have such an iconic London landmark on our client list.”