Whether it’s tracking student attendance in classrooms, monitoring the utilization of common areas, or keeping a close eye on staff and students to ensure their safety, people counting sensors provide valuable insights that can help any educational institution. 

In the world of education, data is everything. Educational institutions such as universities and other schools need accurate, real-time information from student performance to classroom utilization. A reliable and modern people counting system ensures your institute has accurate and timely data to help you make better-informed decisions. Of course, precise people data isn’t alone enough to help you improve your operations. You’ll also need an analytics platform to transform real-world traffic data into actionable insights.

Traffic counters and visitor analysis is becoming more essential every day, and they can help your institute in many ways. With these technologies, you can have the power of data on your back and start improving the student experience with data-driven decisions. People counting will allow you to track student attendance accurately, see how engaged students are with special events and specific zones, which classrooms are utilized more often, and improve safety and security by allocating resources when and where necessary. That’s why traffic counting and visitor analytics technologies are becoming increasingly important tools for schools and universities.

In this article, we’ll explain how educational institutions can benefit from utilizing real-time data on traffic patterns, utilization rates, and engagement to enhance the student and staff experience across the school grounds. We’ll also dive into how recurring data can help you improve your operations and encourage students to attend to studies and activities more. 

People Counting and Visitor Analytics Explained

People counting technology uses sensors to track the number of people entering and exiting a building or area, providing valuable and actionable insights into traffic patterns, utilization rates, and more. However, the market for people and traffic counting is a bit saturated, and most of the providers use outdated technologies that can’t provide accurate visitor data. We strongly recommend opting for a provider that uses 3D Active Stereovision Technology to count people. 

You’ll also need an online visitor analytics platform to process the data your devices collect and transform it into actionable insights, charts, and reports. In a nutshell, it’s just like Google Analytics but for real-world locations. A powerful and versatile visitor analytics tool —like Business Intelligence Platform— can provide valuable insights into your institution’s performance, student behavior, and attendance. The right visitor analytics platform will significantly improve your students’ experience.

Student Attendance Tracking

Educational institutions can use people counting technology to track classroom attendance, lectures, and special events. This helps decision-makers in monitoring attendance, and it also helps with improving student engagement easier. 

People counters are fully GDPR-compliant and don’t keep any facial recognition data, but they can help you identify which classes frequently have lower attendance levels. Manipulating attendance records is unethical and unacceptable, but some students do so for various reasons. In this way, people counting and visitor analytics can even provide an early warning sign that they may need additional support.

Schools use attendance records to determine eligibility for various programs and activities and monitor student performance and engagement; hence, tracking and having accurate information about students’ attendance levels is crucial when you have to award them, or worse, for academic penalties, suspension, or even expulsion.

Student Engagement

Using people counting systems on campus grounds can boost student engagement by providing valuable insights into how students use and interact with campus facilities. This information can then be used to make data-driven decisions that improve the student experience and enhance engagement. 

A highly accurate and cutting-edge people counting system can help you understand utilization patterns and determine which facilities on the campus students use more often and how. You can also improve class scheduling via people counting solutions and add-ons. Student engagement numbers can reveal which classes have low enrollments and which classes may need to be rescheduled or adjusted to meet students’ needs better.

Classroom Utilization Levels

Counting the number of people entering and exiting classrooms, educational institutions can determine the utilization rate of each room and make informed decisions about reallocating space or, if need be, optimizing scheduling. You can use this information to improve classroom utilization and reduce the number of unused or underutilized spaces across the school grounds.

People counters can also help you track the number of students and staff entering and exiting common areas, such as libraries, computer labs, gyms, and other locations. Using accurate traffic data, you can determine how best to allocate resources and staff to meet student needs; also reduce your energy bills drastically. Your students can easily access the resources they need to succeed, while staff and resources can be maximized, all through the power of people counting.

Improve Safety and Security

Safety and security are of utmost importance in schools and universities, and as a decision-maker of such institutions, you’re responsible for ensuring the safety and security of everyone on the school grounds.

Both the students and staff spend a significant amount of time on campus, especially during school terms, and it is essential that they feel safe and secure while they are there. Students are more likely to attend and engage in their studies in a secure environment; on top of that, providing the safety of students and staff is a legal and ethical responsibility of the school management.

At its core, people counting lets you monitor the number of people in a building or in a specific zone, which can help with emergency evacuation planning and ensure the safety of students and staff. Knowing the number of people in a building at any given time, institutions can quickly act if an emergency evacuation is necessary and plan accordingly for the future.

Conclusion

People counting and visitor analytics may not be essential for educational institutions, but they significantly improve student and staff life while helping you save energy and money. 

If you’re in charge of an educational institution looking to take your data analysis to the next level, consider investing in people counting and visitor analytics technology today. V-Count offers the highest accuracy in people counting, age and gender analysis and provides cutting-edge zone analytics and heatmap-based solutions. Reach out to us now, and we’ll get you connected with one of our experts in no time. Let’s maximize your revenue together!