Skip to main content

Pedestrian counters help monitor the effectiveness of new investment

Eton Community Association has commissioned the charity, the Outdoor Trust, to develop a promotional Walkway for the town in Berkshire in the UK. In advance of the launch in spring 2017 two Eco Pyro pedestrian counters, supplied by UK company Traffic Technology, have been installed in the town to study footfall along the High Street. Results indicate that on most days people are using the bridge as the main gateway to the town but that only 60 per cent of people crossing the bridge travel the distance o
December 16, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
Eton Community Association has commissioned the charity, the Outdoor Trust, to develop a promotional Walkway for the town in Berkshire in the UK.  In advance of the launch in spring 2017 two Eco Pyro pedestrian counters, supplied by UK company 561 Traffic Technology, have been installed in the town to study footfall along the High Street.

Results indicate that on most days people are using the bridge as the main gateway to the town but that only 60 per cent of people crossing the bridge travel the distance of the High Street during the week and at weekends this reduces to 30 per cent.  

It is hoped that once launched the Eton Walkway, which connects 18 points of significance over a two-mile walk and takes approximately one hour to complete, will entice people to explore further and stay longer to enjoy more of the historic town.

The weather- and vandal-proof Pyro Box Compact uses the patented Eco-counter Pyroelectric sensor which uses passive infrared technology to count pedestrians passing within range of the sensor by detecting their body temperature. The narrowness of the detection area ensures that even two people following each other closely will be counted.  For wider walkways, two lenses can be installed facing in opposite directions.

Eton Community Association will be closely monitoring the impact of the walkway and both Eton Town Council and local traders are also planning to use the data to analyse the impact of other events and activities.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Substantial savings from smarter street lighting
    February 25, 2015
    As authorities strive to reduce expenditure and carbon emissions, Colin Sowman looks at some of the smart ways of managing street lighting while containing costs and maintaining safety. Street lighting can account for 40% of an authority’s energy consumption. So, faced with the need to reduce outgoings, some authorities are looking for smart ways of managing street lighting or even turning off swathes of street lights in the small hours. Back in 2008 the E-street Initiative report concluded that authorities
  • Fast moving walkways could move 7,000 people per hour
    November 28, 2016
    Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) researchers have been studying futuristic transport solutions for car-free urban centres and have come up with an optimal design for a network of accelerating moving walkways. This is not a new concept – the first moving walkways were seen in Chicago in 1893 and seven years later they were used at the world’s fair in Paris. They are also regularly used the world over in airports and transport terminals. As part of the PostCarW
  • Air quality tops transportation agendas
    November 17, 2014
    Colin Sowman catches up on some of the latest research around outdoor pollution and looks at options available to authorities in areas of poor air quality. Iair quality hasn’t already reached the top of the agenda in transportation department meetings in your area, it probably soon will with national, trans-national and even global bodies calling for authorities to reduce pollution levels.
  • Improve and increase mass transit systems to minimise congestion
    January 24, 2012
    Rather looking to solve congestion by spreading the load, perhaps we need to look at concentrating it. Michael L. Sena writes. We humans were made to walk and run at embarrassingly slow speeds by comparison with other, more fleet-footed organisms. The sea is not our natural habitat and we were definitely not designed to fly unaided. Nevertheless, humankind has evolved a method of living during the past century that is dependent on transporting its members over very long distances during relatively short per