The coast is clear because Citymesh is here!

Westtoer collaborates with operator Citymesh to accurately monitor crowds during the summer months. The company uses smart and automatic monitoring technology. Citymesh has years of experience determining trends and visitor flows. With this qualitative solution, cities have access to valuable data about the visitors and citizens in the city.

Citymesh has fifteen years of experience providing smart solutions to cities, municipalities and holiday parks at the Belgian coast. In April, it was made clear we would not be able to just return to our day-to-day lives. That is why several parties consulted with us. After many bilateral deliberations, we came up with a widely supported initiative: "Every party involved is convinced we bring the right skills to the table. We have years of experience with connectivity, footfall analytics and events. Our expertise will be advantageous in the light of the safety measures at the Belgian coast." says Ward Van Ooteghem, Chief Solutions Officer at Citymesh.

With its solutions, Citymesh wants to guarantee the safety of every citizen and visitor at all times. In this way, Citymesh contributes to the mission of Westtoer: supporting tourism as an economic sector in West-Flanders and stimulating supralocal outdoor recreation. A trustworthy dataset is crucial to provide the perfect balance between these two elements.

Monitoring crowds will happen with the Footfall AI, one of the solutions of Citymesh. The Footfall AI is based on image sensors and uses Machine Learning for flexible monitoring options. The solution monitors accurately and anonymously how many people are located in a pre-determined area such as a shopping street.

The calculations are constantly updated which gives you an accurate and real-time overview of the number of people in an area. The distinguishing factor of this solution is that the Footfall AI knows exactly how big an area is. An algorithm calculates automatically how many people are allowed in said area, according to the rules of social distancing.

"In this way, Citymesh wants to provide, scalable and future-proof platform, with a clear focus on privacy and safe use of data," says Mitch de Geest, CEO of Citymesh. "By sharing the data in real-time with Westtoer and its stakeholders, the data can be displayed responsively". The data is accessible on several devices and the interface will be adapted to the needs of the different stakeholders. Every user can interpret the data at a glance."

Check the real-time data here!