PASSENGER FLOW ANALYTICS
Where are your passengers going?
the challenge
Analyze passenger flow beyond simple occupancy metrics, within the nuanced context of airport design and operations
the outcome
A multi-location videography study using computer vision processing, spatial flow diagrams, and behavioral findings tied to design and operational recommendations.
TYPE:
Ethnographic Research
CLIENT:
Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) & Boston Logan Airport
KEYWORDS:
Videography, Computer Vision, Spatial Analytics
Similar projects:
Experiential Wayfinding
Air Travel Design Guide
Sensors give you volume, but not behavior
Most airports approach passenger flow through sensor networks or manual counts. These methods answer one question — "how many?" — with reasonable accuracy. They don't answer the questions that matter for design and operations: which paths passengers choose vs. the paths that are designed to be taken, where dwell clusters form unexpectedly, where flow breaks down under load, and what the space looks like at different times of day across different passenger types.
APPROACH
INVIVIA designed a videography-based study across eight terminal locations, capturing footage across the full range of operational conditions. Footage was processed through a computer vision pipeline combining object detection and multi-object tracking, identifying individual passenger trajectories, dwell times, movement directions, and zone occupancy patterns. The pipeline distinguishes passenger types and tracks how flow patterns shift across time-of-day and gate conditions — producing behavioral data at a resolution no sensor network delivers.
A spatial behavioral record, not a headcount
The data captures the gap between intended flow and actual flow — the detours, the hesitations, the dwell clusters that form in places nobody planned for. Overlaid on terminal geometry, it shows exactly where the designed circulation logic breaks down and what passengers do instead. That's the data that makes design interventions defensible and operational decisions precise.
Our Approach and Expertise