Northern Trials On-Board Automatic Passenger Counting System

Northern, the second largest train operator in the UK, has begun trialling Automatic Passenger Counting software on some of its trains. The system, which utilises Artificial Intelligence, is said to be 98% accurate and has been installed on eight of Northern’s Class 769 trains.

According to reports in The Rail Engineer, 88 cameras, 8 computers and 5km of cable have been put on board the trains which will run on services between Liverpool, Manchester, Southport, Wigan and Blackpool. Overall, Northern runs 2,500 trains a day and serves 500 stations. The recent upgrade was carried out by a team of specialists from the train company itself and its partners - Icomera and DG8.

New Traincomms Programme available here …http://traincomms.com/#content2b

In a press statement Jack Commandeur, engineering director at Northern, said: “More than 90 million people step on-board one of our trains every year and our fleet of Class 769 trains will now give us more accurate data on passenger volumes than we’ve ever had before. This joint collaboration with Icomera and DG8 will help us to improve the overall efficiency of our operations and can inform future service planning.”

Peter Kingsland, Icomera’s senior vice president in the UK, said: “The on-board network on the newly upgraded Class 769 fleet provides Northern with an exciting testbed for future applications of AI video analytics.

As part of Northern’s new ‘Plan Led Approach’ to engineering, the work was carried out alongside scheduled heater upgrades and improvements to WiFi and CCTV equipment to ensure each train was out of passenger service for the minimal amount of time.

The latest programme for this year’s year’s WiFi on Trains Conference – Traincomms 2024 is now available here http://traincomms.com/#content2b

TheConference will take place on the 13^th and 14^th of November. For more information on getting involved please see www.Traincomms.com or contact Ross.Parsons@BWCS.com .