Finding foot traffic hotspots
The great indoors opens up a new frontier for companies in location analytics, and Here, a unit of Nokia, has been logging data points about thousands of locations of interest, ranging from airport gates and taxi stands to lobbies and play areas, to help users find a parking spot close to a particular store at the mall, for example, or to know when a bank branch is open at a nearby address.
The illustration above shows an experiment by Esri and GISi Indoors at a convention center. In one panel, at center, red dots show the location of anonymized smartphone users tracked by WiFi signals. The "heat map" panel on the right shows the foot traffic of smartphone owners who opted in to a pilot test. Analyses like these can help retailers plan floor displays. Wolfgang Hall, a logistics expert at Esri, said other emerging uses include analyzing office building layouts and giving users directions inside a large complex.
(Source: Esri)
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