CAM-77

The carts at the door

The cart corral beside the door of a supermarket: half the slots are empty and a shopper is pulling out the last one from the front row. The entrance is visible behind. IRIS counts shopping carts and people; it does not know who anyone is.

CAM-77 · 1 ZONE · 24 h

What IRIS understands

What it recognizes in this scene

cart corral
shopper taking a shopping cart
store entrance

What this camera gives back

Nobody gets an alert here. Here you get numbers.

31Shopping carts available
84Shopping carts taken
1 h 20 minTime with none left
11:00Peak hour
46Baskets taken
512Total today

The figures on this screen are an example from the illustration, not any client’s measurement.

The series, not one figure

One number says nothing. A curve does.

Shopping carts available by time slot

Shopping carts in the bay

Shopping carts available by time slot
Slot	Shopping carts in the bay
06	58
08	31
10	9
12	14
14	27
16	33
18	12
20	26
22	49

The figures on this screen are an example from the illustration, not any client’s measurement.

How the counting works

Counting isn’t something you ask for. You draw a line.

Here there’s one area painted over the bay, and nothing else. IRIS counts how many shopping carts are inside that area at any moment: when the number drops, they’re being taken; when the area hits zero, there are none left. From that comes the counter that really matters — how long each day the bay stands empty. An area can’t be described in words: it is drawn once onto the frame, so today’s figure and next month’s are measured the same way.

the bay area · Dwell zone

What changes

What changes for whoever runs the store

A customer who comes in without a shopping cart buys less, and anyone who has run a store knows it: with your hands full you pick up three things and head for the register. When the bay is empty, whoever arrives comes in with a basket or with nothing. The store manager has no way of knowing how many hours a day he runs out of shopping carts, because whenever he happens to walk past the door there are always a few. With the area drawn he has that number and the time of day it happens, and from there he decides whether to buy more shopping carts or to send someone out to the parking lot mid-morning. The figures on the illustration are an example, not any store’s measurement.

What people usually ask

Isn’t it enough for someone to check now and then?

No, because when somebody checks there are almost always shopping carts. The bay empties in short spells — the eleven o’clock peak, Friday afternoon — and fills itself up again when people bring them back. That twenty-minute gap is the one that costs you the big baskets, and it only shows up if you count the whole day without stopping.

Does IRIS tell a shopping cart from a basket?

Yes, they’re two different objects and they’re counted separately. And the difference says a lot: whoever picks up a basket has already decided the store will be a small one, while whoever takes a shopping cart hasn’t decided yet. Watching how the split between the two changes over the day is a figure no store has, and it comes just from looking at the door.

Does it also count the people coming in through the door?

Yes, and that’s the comparison that matters: how many people come in against how many shopping carts leave the bay. If a lot of people come in and few shopping carts go out, either there were none left or they’re badly placed, and those are two different fixes. IRIS counts bodies: it does not recognize faces, it does not store who anyone is and it does not link a person to the shopping cart they took.

Other cameras

Simulation · how IRIS works

You set the rule once. IRIS applies it every time.

You will see a summary of the interface, played step by step and hands-free. Each round starts with another case. The complete tool doesn’t fit in a demo.