Visitor Guiding & Planning

Interactive Visitor Guides

@ease is a new concept in visitor management and scheduling: real-time route planning around large exhibitions and visitor attractions integrated with context-aware smartphone-based presentation.

Artificial intelligence-based algorithms make each visit unique by tailoring the route and the information displayed based on the user's preferences and interests.

• Tailored Visitor Routes: automatically tailor the visit based on customer preferences
• Crowd Avoidance Algorithms: control flows and reduce crowding in confined spaces
• Virtual Tour Guide: automated updates based on the visitor's movements and progress
• @ease in @ction: applied to major archaeological sites in France, Italy and Greece

@ease integrates with interactive museum guides, multimedia experiences at tourist attractions or smartphone-based tour guides for towns, optimizing the experience for the individual while improving overall visitor management and flows.

Tailored Routes & Navigation

@ease is ideally suited for museums, trade shows, exhibitions, archaeological sites, city centres, galleries, theme parks, castles, parks, gardens, arboreta and many other visitor attractions.

The system profiles each visitor, ascertaining their interests and level of expertise/knowledge, and automatically schedules a personalised visit based on the time they have available.

The visitor is intelligently guided around the site or exhibition, using a multi-objective route optimization approach which makes best use of the visitor's time while taking into account their preferences and accessibility requirements.

Integration with multimedia presentation systems allows the visitor to be provided with context-aware information relating to nearby attractions or exhibits, in a form appropriate to their interests and expertise.

Crowd Avoidance Algorithms

Using real-time positional information captured by the visitors' smartphone or guiding device @ease can optimize routes to reduce over-crowding and queueing.

For example, the progress of large groups of visitors can be monitored and predicted, based on their planned route around the site. Scheduling of other groups or individual visitors can be refined to avoid large numbers of people in the same area simultaneously.

In addition to reducing crowding and improving the experience for the visitor the capture of location/path data for each visitor allows strategic analysis for planning future exhibits and for safety and emergency procedures.

Virtual Tour Guide System

The visitor guiding algorithms are interactive: at any point the visitor can request more information or extend/reduce the length of the visit. @ease responds by "learning" from these changes, refining the planned route accordingly.

Visitors can be notified of demonstrations, presentations, etc. and have the option of rescheduling their visit around any event of interest to them. @ease is web-enabled, allowing potential visitors or customers to plan their visit before they arrive.

Similarly @ease may be used to provide tours around towns and regions, acting as a GPS tour guide and directing the visitor to points of interest based on their preferences and time constraints. @ease can be used by tourist authorities to promote their region and provide visitors with a richer experience that is tailored to their requirements.

@ease in @ction

This new concept has been trialled successfully in several major archaeological sites in Europe:

• The Paestum site, with its beautiful Doric temples, in Southern Italy.
• The Mycenae prehistoric site and legendary home of the Atreides, in Greece.
• The Bibracte Gaulish fortified city, situated near modern Autun in Burgundy, France.