Parking Lot Vehicle Detection Using Deep Learning – GeoAI – Medium

Although the idea of vehicle detection is not a groundbreaking one and has been around since the emergence of video cameras and embedded sensors, these methods were often marred by high capital and maintenance costs and a high complexity from having to integrate multiple data sources, each with a limited band of inputs. The prevalence of drones in the commercial market in recent years on the other hand, has brought about a new era of state-of-the-art aerial photogrammetry and a drastic reduction in the cost of obtaining aerial data. With this sudden increase in information, and by combining machine learning with GIS technologies, we are now capable of performing new and insightful analyses on issues of interest. Existent business problems which stand to benefit from this include customer flow analyses and demographic modelling. This is particularly useful for those in the retail sector looking to monitor peak business hours by counting the number of parked vehicles at a given time and also extrapolate useful customer information (such as income, marital status, household size and even political inclination) by classifying the types of vehicles they own.