Neural labs solutions for retail

INTRODUCTION

In USA it’s common to say the phrase: “no parking, no business”. How easy it’s to park close to a commerce undeniably has a big impact on its turnover, especially in retail.

Therefore, it’s usual that big stores and shopping centers have large parking lots completely free, with some hours free of charge, or of payment.

The parking lot is where the “user experience” starts when he/she visits the store or shopping center and the right management and optimization of it impacts a lot in this experience.

Being one of the access points to the shopping center, the parking is an ideal spot to stablish both security and information gathering measures for better knowledge of the visitors.

NEURAL LABS SOLUTIONS

In the retail sector and, more specifically, in the parking management, Neural Labs has years of experience offering solutions that help to solve the following issues:

• Capacity management.
• Prevention of access of vehicles reported as “conflictive”.
• VIP costumers notification management.
• Prevention of fraudulent vehicle damage claims.
• Length of stay management / statistics.
• Incidents in the shopping center/ store resolution support.
• Data collection and analysis for costumer segmentation, marketing, etc.

SOLUTIONS IMPLEMENTATION

- Architecture

Neural Labs proposes installing cameras that capture the vehicles' characteristics at all the entries, exits and subzones that are wanted to be monitored.
Using our technology, these cameras Will collect the following data from each vehicle that enters:

• License plate (essential to individualize each access).
• Vehicle make (very useful for marketing).
• Vehicle color.
• Vehicle classification.
• Drive direction (in bidirectional lanes).
• Vehicle country.
• Date and hour of entry and exit.

The cameras can be conventional IP ones (Vivotek, Axis, Dahua, etc.). They only must be previously approved by Neural Labs consultants to be sure that they are fitted for the scenario that we want to monitor.

 
The use of these standard cameras, that can be acquired locally, is one of the keys to make the solution cost lower without losing performance.

If capacity detailed information by floors or parking areas is required, it’s necessary to install additional cameras on those areas.

SOLUTIONS DETAILS

- Capacity management

Through the license plates recognition of all the entries, exits and subzones we have global capacity always monitored of each of these areas (by floors, for example).

This way the parking manager Will always have the vision of the global situation and the areas capacity.

If cameras are installed in the entries and exits of the areas, the system could even guide the driver to the areas where there’s free parking spots. 

Furthermore, the system knows the exact list of vehicles that are inside the parking, how long have been there, and the area where they are parked.

If an incident occurs it is of special interest to know if a specific vehicle is parked in the shopping center or store. For instance, if there is a suspicion of terrorism, stolen cars have been abandoned there, etc.

The system stores historical capacity data to be able to make statistics or distributions later.

 
- Prevention of access to vehicle reported as "conflictive"

The Neural Labs solution allows to create unlimited lists and to import them automatically from other systems.

 
One of the most common uses is to create a list of “suspicious” vehicles where you can include delinquents that have caused trouble in the past, etc.

These lists are especially useful for the Security staff, who will be receiving notifications if any of those vehicles try to access to the shopping center. This allows them to make the corresponding actions.

Alerts history

- V.I.P costumers notification management

With the same list management, we can create a list of costumers that require special handling or attention. Like celebrities, people in management positions or V.I.P. costumers.

Whichever the list is, if the vehicle is detected (persistent shoplifters, VIP clients, etc.), the system allows the notification to be send out via WhatsApp to the Security Staff that is out of the control center.

- Prevention of fraudulent vehicle damage claims

In the business premises where costumers pay to park, the business is held responsible of the external damage vehicles might suffer during their stay.

That opens the possibility of fraudulent claims of damages with the objective of making the business pay for their reparation.

Given this issue, the most common solution is the installation of lateral cameras that record the vehicle status when it entered the premises.

Those recordings can be managed by a VMS (Milestone, Hanwha, Vast2, etc.) and indexed by the license plate recognition.

The practical effect is that, in case of a claim, only introducing the license plate in the VMS we’ll have the video clips where the vehicle appears. This way we’ll be able to verify the damages told by the costumer.

 Example of architecture with audit in Access Control

The VMS usage is not strictly necessary because the Neural Labs solution is able to create short evidence video clips with the additional cameras.

Nevertheless, it is highly recommended because it enriches the global solution adding video management possibilities to Neural Labs’ video analytics.

- Lenght of stay management/ statistics

Neural Labs solution for retail allows you to know the costumer’s length of stay in the parking lot. That is utmost important data to:

• Know the medium stay time of the costumers in the premises and, ultimately, knowing better the costumers and their habits.
• Detect illicit parking by people that use the free retail parking premises for other reasons like, for example:

It also allows you to have statistics and distributions of lengths of stay historically to analyze its evolution.

- Incidents in the shopping center/store resolution support

All the vehicle data detected in entries and exits is stored for its consultation.

If there is an incident in the premises because of shoplifting, for example, historic data can be found by:

• License plate or part of it.
• Vehicle color
• Vehicle make.
• Vehicle classification (Van, car, motorbike, etc.)
• Time frame.
• Etc.

For example, it’s possible to search for a vehicle: black, Nissan, car, and license plate ending in 033 that exited the premises on a specific date between 5 pm and 6pm.

These incident searches can help to capture the responsible, ban him/ her the access to the shopping center and/or create a notification alert if they try to access again, for example.

Historical data has numerous applications and is consulted for infinite reasons..

- Data collection and analysis for costumer segmentarion, marketing, etc.

The knowledge of vehicle characteristics like make, color and classification that our solution offers is extremely useful to know the costumer or even segment him/her.

Segmented advertising can be displayed when the vehicle enters to the shopping center according to that data. Ads, in this situation, can be about one of the stores of the shopping center, for example.

Historic data analysis can help creating a typical customer profile of the store and measure the impact of concrete campaigns to attract certain costumers.

Ultimately, once more, knowing the costumer.

- VMS Support

Neural Labs solutions are integrated with numerous VMS (Milestone, BVMS, VAST2, Wave, Avigilon, Indigo Vision, etc.)

 Integración con Wave

This allows to include the license plate recognition cameras and the audit ones to the already existing ones in the premises.

Neural Labs solution indexes all the vehicle characteristics and the alarms in the VMS system, allowing fast access to the recordings searching by license plates, etc.

The combination of both technologies makes the retail solution more complete, considering that most of the premises already have a VMS recording the security cameras of the store.

Video management system (VMS) integration

 
- Centralized data management

Neural Labs operates both in a decentralized and a centralized way.

Every shopping center, store, etc. can send data to a central repository where data of all the premises is unified.

This is especially useful for shopping centers chains, food ones, etc., offering a global vision of the stores´ status and, at the same time, being able to export statistics and consolidated data, comparisons between shopping centers, etc.

Likewise, some “dangerous vehicles” or “VIP costumers” lists can be managed centrally allowing all stores to download them automatically. Therefore, all premises networks could share common interest lists.

 Centralized data model

- Other analytics and systems combination

Facial recognition, for example, comes full circle of this solution in the Security.

With Neural Labs solution you’ll be in control of all the parking lots avoiding the access of vehicles reported as dangerous and, with facial recognition, the same can be applied for people accesses.Both technologies are complementary, increasing the safety of a shopping center, for example. .

Many premises have a PSIM (Physical security information management) system that unifies the management of different security systems.

It has vital importance the integration with those systems in order to provide a single operations platform.

CONCLUSIONS

Retail has hit hard times. In United States it is also said that we are facing a “retail apocalypse”. And the strong competition of companies like Amazon is wearing down the sector that is working on reinventing itself.

The application of all these solutions improves the costumer experience, something very necessary in these uncertain times for the sector and offers very useful information for the store or the shopping center.

NEURAL LABS PROPOSAL

Neural Labs offers himself as a Partner to participate in the issues and objectives of each store, making visits on the field and meetings with the main premises responsibles. After that requirement gathering and analysis, the most effective solution is designed, with a tight budget and an implementation proposal.

The client support engineers from Neural Labs, also can participate in the implementation and solution maintenance afterwards

Elías Valcárcel Torres
Neural Labs, S.L.
CEO

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