Knowing the occupancy degree of the most representative buildings and places in a city is of great importance when it comes to adapting municipal services and organising resources. To this end, and as part of the SmartCitizen initiative, your City Council has been installing a technological system for some months now, consisting of devices responsible for controlling the capacity of some of the most important places in your city. Do you want to know how they work? We'll explain it to you.   

These devices work as electronic sensors with 3D vision, thanks to which they are able to count the number of people entering or leaving a building. In addition, they distinguish objects without volume, such as shadows or reflections, and do not count them in order to avoid possible errors in the total number of people in a place. They also detect differences in height, making it possible to differentiate between children and adults.  

We would like to emphasise that these devices never record or save images of the people being counted, in order to guarantee the privacy and data protection of the people of Santander and its visitors. 

All the information collected by this technological system is stored in real time on the Santander SmartCity platform, which the City Council has access to and will make available to you in real-time through other components of the Santander SmartCitizen initiative: the technological corners, the new Santander City municipal app or through the initiative's website. 

Thanks to this "live" information on the attendance to these places, you can find out relevant data such as: when there is more activity, when there is more availability of spaces, having an approximation of the waiting time to access a building, knowing when is the best time to visit it, etc.  

In addition, these devices with 3D vision allow us to know the behaviour of visitors to these buildings throughout the day so that we can manage municipal resources adapted to each site, for example: allocating resources to avoid long waits, reinforcing staff in certain places, better managing energy efficiency and, above all now, taking appropriate measures to ensure the safety of citizens in front of the Covid-19, complying with safety regulations regarding capacity, maintaining a safe distance between people, avoiding crowds, long queues, etc..., something that is undoubtedly of paramount importance for your City Council at this time.  

There are 16 buildings in Santander that will be equipped with this technological system for counting people, although some places have already had it for a few months, such as the Mercado de la Esperanza or the Palacio de la Magdalena.  

This new solution is part of the Santander SmartCitizen initiative, where you will be the protagonist of the whole change and you will be aware of everything that happens in your city. You will feel Santander closer and more yours than ever.