Poll: Nearly Half of University Space Planners, Administrators and Leadership Rank Occupancy Monitoring a Top Priority for Their Campuses Today

SAN DIEGO, April 22, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Occuspace, the developer of easy, scalable, and affordable crowd monitoring technology, has released the results of a March 31 webinar poll conducted in partnership with The Chronicle of Higher Education that reveals 46% of more than 1,300 university space planners, architects, and other campus administrators rank "occupancy monitoring" a high or very high priority for their campuses.

Occupancy monitoring is the use of technology to determine the number of people in a given space, providing data for businesses to more reliably monitor how spaces are being used. Higher education administrators now more than ever want to better understand and control how their campus spaces are being utilized. Many of them are prioritizing real-time occupancy monitoring technology to safely reopen and make data-driven decisions to manage their buildings.

Occuspace is the creator of people counting sensors that plug into standard wall outlets and scan for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth activity from laptops, cell phones, and other connected devices to reveal the real-time busyness of any space. Requiring zero infrastructure changes to install, universities can immediately start monitoring the crowd levels of places like libraries, gyms, dining halls, student centers, classrooms, and administrative offices. Occupancy information is displayed via the company's free mobile app, Waitz, as well as in signage placed in the entrances to buildings and/or dedicated university web pages via an API integration.

The "Rethinking Campus Spaces" webinar, hosted by The Chronicle of Higher Education with Occuspace, featured space planning and architecture experts. They discussed how the pandemic has reshaped the traditional college campus including more thoughtful use of space; smaller, adaptable campuses; more careful monitoring and limits on building occupancy; and spaces designed to increase student retention. The webinar was tied to an in-depth report authored by The Chronicle about how college campuses are modifying their spaces to prepare for the future of learning and work during and post-pandemic.

Pioneers in data-driven building management
Since the start of the pandemic, Occuspace has more than quadrupled its existing business and interest in the company's occupancy monitoring technology. The product has been used across higher education at universities including UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, University of Rochester, Baylor University, McGill University, and most recently, Rice University, which has adopted this innovative technology ahead of reopening in full to students and staff in the fall.

"Occuspace has given Rice students a simple, quick tool to plan their trip to the Fondren Library and select the best study space to meet their needs and maintain the health of the university," said Jeff Koffler, library systems at Rice University. "We envision this type of data helpful in the fall when the building is open 24 hours a day for selecting less busy times to visit, especially during midterms and finals when the building sees a lot of use."

Occuspace has observed the ways universities are fast-tracking the need for more data-driven space capacity monitoring and overall building management processes.

"Similar to how website analytics equips businesses with critical information into web traffic and trends, occupancy data provides unprecedented insights into how spaces are being used to make space planning, design, and management more efficient," said Nic Halverson, founder and CEO of Occuspace. "Our technology is forcing disruption of traditional building management operations, allowing our users to benefit from real-time and historical occupancy intelligence that they have lacked."

To learn more about Occuspace, visit occuspace.io.

About Occuspace
Occuspace is the world's easiest and most affordable occupancy management solution. The innovative, privacy-friendly IoT occupancy tracking solution and corresponding iOS and Android application, Waitz, provide institutions, business owners, and visitors the ability to monitor crowding in a given space in real-time. Occuspace allows its customers to leverage the power of occupancy data over time to more effectively design and enforce the use of physical spaces to improve visitor experiences. For more information, visit occuspace.io.

Contact:   Cassie Dono 
                 Occuspace
                 +1 858 243 8875
                 [email protected]

SOURCE Occuspace

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https://occuspace.io/