Delivering a ‘smart’ Amsterdam Central Station

Under a contract awarded by the Netherlands Railways (NS), Royal HaskoningDHV has been measuring the pedestrian flows of Amsterdam Central Station since the beginning of May. The data enables NS to optimise the often complex pedestrian flows at this station, thereby improving comfort and safety of the 250,000 daily visitors of Amsterdam Central Station. Royal HaskoningDHV has implemented a range of technologies that are already in use other stations in the Netherlands, including tracking and counting se
May 26, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
Under a contract awarded by the Netherlands Railways (NS), 6132 Royal HaskoningDHV has been measuring the pedestrian flows of Amsterdam Central Station since the beginning of May. The data enables NS to optimise the often complex pedestrian flows at this station, thereby improving comfort and safety of the 250,000 daily visitors of Amsterdam Central Station.
 
Royal HaskoningDHV has implemented a range of technologies that are already in use other stations in the Netherlands, including tracking and counting sensors at the station’s entrances and exits and wi-fi tracking from mobile devices. These provide data on where flows of pedestrians enter and leave the station and enables their numbers, walking routes, length of stay and  times of day to be measured, as well as how busy the different locations are.

The data gathered is then analysed to inform new measures that improve pedestrian flow around the station. These might include changing the design and layout of the station, relocating public transport gates, deploying station staff differently, or finding the most logical positions for signposting and the best points to offer station and other information.
Networking & Communication Systems Urban Traffic Control

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Getting more for less from traffic data
    August 15, 2012
    Collection of traffic and transit data has grown significantly, combining with advances in connectivity and computational modelling to good effect. Desire to do more with less – to make budgets go further – has helped create a boom in the collection and study of traffic and transport data. Studies are becoming longer, greater in number and further in-depth as more intelligence is sought, plus, transportation agencies are looking to make processes of data collection less costly, or more efficient.
    Read More
  • Highways Agency trials new traffic monitoring technology
    September 24, 2013
    The UK Highways Agency is trialling a system to add commercially available traffic data to its existing sources to monitor traffic flow on England’s motorways and strategic roads. Similar data sources are already used by satellite navigation devices, smartphones, and applications like Google maps. The system uses data that comes mostly from vehicle tracking devices installed by fleet operators, and a proportion from mobile sat-nav type devices, including smartphone traffic applications where the user has
    Read More
  • Cost benefit: Toronto retimings tame traffic trauma
    July 11, 2018
    Canada’s largest city reckons that it is saving its taxpayers’ money simply by altering the way traffic lights work. David Crawford reviews Toronto’s ambitious plans to ease congestion. Toronto, Canada’s largest metropolis (and the fourth largest in North America), has saved its residents CAN$53 (US$42.4) for every CAN$1 (US$0.80) spent over a 2012-2016 traffic signal retiming programme, according to figures released by its Transportation Services Division. The programme covered 1,275 signals (the city’s to
    Read More
  • Mega trends will challenge transport technology
    June 5, 2015
    Jon Masters investigates some of the longer term trends that will shape transportation over the next 20 years. Business analysts and investors have already placed their bets on a future of technological smart mobility services. In December last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that Uber, the on-demand taxi and lift share smartphone app and start-up business, had been valued at $41.2 billion which, as the Journal reported, is an incredible vote of confidence for a company only five years old.
    Read More

Highlighted Content