Yissum Research Development Company Ltd., the
technology transfer arm of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has
introduced a novel method for tracking, recording and analyzing
how people move around for the purpose of tourism, town planning
and healthcare applications. The novel system monitors people’s
movements and use of open space to provide accurate data for use
in healthcare, urban planning, retail yield management, law
enforcement and tourism management. The technology was developed by Dr.
Noam Shoval and Michal Isaacson, of the Hebrew University’s
Department of Geography, Faculty of Social Sciences.
Since human behavior is very unpredictable and
depends on countless variables, data on how people move around in
amusement parks, national parks and other tourist venues often
comes from subjective and inaccurate human testimony. Costly
mistakes in planning such sites are usually detected only after
the project is completed and in use. There thus exists a need for
an accurate, objective system that monitors and records how people
actually behave and analyzes the data for the purpose of planning
and construction.
The system uses Global Positioning System (GPS)
technology as a tool for recording the location of people for the
desired period of time. During the tracking period, participants
are required to carry a small GPS unit with them. The tracking
data is then analyzed, using a proprietary time/space analysis
engine, to derive a map indicating the routes taken by each
participant and the length of time spent in each location. The
data obtained using tracking technologies can be analyzed in real time,
creating virtual “radar” of the activity of visitors throughout a
destination. The system was recently assessed in PortAventura
theme park in Spain. One of the interesting outcomes of this pilot
trial was that the tracking and analysis system revealed
nationality-dependent differences in the time spent in various
facilities.
"Urban tourism is a growing sector with profound
effects on the city’s layout and economy. This system is an
extremely sensitive tool for tourist activity segmentation," said
Yaacov Michlin, CEO of Yissum. "This tool provides important
information that is impossible to gather in traditional ways, such
as locating areas that are under-visited by tourists and have
unrealized potential, and determining the effects of time, weather
and a multitude of other parameters on tourist mobility and
activity."
The tracking and analyzing system also has far
reaching medical applications. In collaboration with Dr. Yair
Barzilay from the Orthopedic Surgery Unit at Hadassah Medical
Organization, a system was developed for detecting the mobility of
patients after surgery, as an objective measure for their
recovery and wellbeing. Patients carry a GPS unit with them after
the operation, and future development will integrate additional
sensors that will allow the combination of GPS data with
physiological data, such as heart rate and blood pressure. The
system has recently been licensed to Location Based Intelligence Inc.
for further development and commercialization in the medical arena.
