IMAGE SEQUENCE-ANALYSIS FOR COUNTING IN REAL-TIME PEOPLE GETTING IN AND OUT OF A BUS

An automatic system using dynamic image sequence processing to count p ersons getting in and-out of a bus is presented. This parameter is ver y useful to allocate 'at run-time' the proper number of buses to each line of a transport service. Some suitably developed fast algorithms a re used in order to detect motion, estimate its direction, and validat e the presence of an actual target. The system is capable of coping wi th vibrations, lightning fluctuations, and environmental variations. I ts main advantages are the execution speed and the reliability of the counting process which is correctly performed even if people Bow in a chaotic and very clustered way. Application of the proposed system to the real image sequence acquired during the standard travel of a bus i s reported and discussed. The system is well suited for hardware imple mentation due to the particular attention devoted to the development o f algorithms.