Ever wanted to know about the crowds in Dubrovnik’s Old Town before you got there?
The City of Dubrovnik, the DURA development agency and the Enum Software startup, within the measures projected by the ‘Respect the City’ project, have developed and launched an application which predicts the number of visitors to the Old Town of Dubrovnik, reports Dubrovački Vjesnik on October 10, 2018.
Based on machine learning as a special branch of artificial intelligence, the application estimates the number of people in the historic Old Town and the contact zones of Dubrovnik on the selected day. The application is certainly most useful for visitors planning to visit the ancient city center, but no less important, it provides accurate and timely information to citizens as well as to all local businesses in planning their daily or business activities.
The application is even bilingual and recognizes four possible cases textually and visually: Not Crowded (green), Slightly Crowded (yellow), Crowded (orange), and Overcrowded (red). In the event the system predicts a crowd, users are recommended to visit the Old Town in the morning, late afternoon or evening to have the best experience in Dubrovnik.
At the heart of the strategic and multidisciplinary project ‘Respect the City’ are informed visitors and citizens, and this application is a useful tool in managing tourist traffic. Specifically, different parameters are used for predicting the number of visitor algorithms, such as the number of visitors from cruise ships, the number of arrivals and overnights in accommodation facilities, as well as the weather forecast (data about the average temperature and rainfall). The algorithm updates and improves itself automatically with each new data (for example, a seven-day forecast is taken into account), so the “short term” forecasts become more and more accurate.
The next system upgrade hopes to establish cooperation with booking platforms for accommodation in such a way that, when making individual reservations, the user planning their arrival in Dubrovnik is offered a link to the forecast calendar so that it may influence how long they stay or when they arrive.
Dubrovnik Visitors is a system that, thanks to the cameras and counters located at the entrance to the Old Town, provides insight into the actual number of visitors at any time – and based on the collected information that is updated every 15 minutes, it creates the basis for decision-making and handling of pedestrian traffic around and in the ancient core of the city.
Users can already try the application on the link www.dubrovnik-visitors.hr/prediction.
Translated from Dubrovački Vjesnik
