API ProFleet installs automatic passenger counters on transit buses and shuttles across Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. A sensor goes above every door, wired to the door signal and the onboard computer, so every boarding and every exit is counted and tied to the stop where it happened.
An automatic passenger counter, or APC, is a sensor mounted above a bus door that counts every person getting on and every person getting off, without anyone tapping a card or pressing a button.
Current sensors look straight down at the doorway and measure the shape and direction of what passes underneath, usually with infrared time-of-flight or 3D imaging. That lets them tell one adult from two children walking together, and a boarding passenger from someone stepping back out. The sensor only counts while the door is open, which is why the door-open signal matters as much as the sensor itself.
Stop-by-stop boardings and alightings, and from those, how full every bus was between every pair of stops.
The onboard computer matches each count to the stop where the door opened, using the bus GPS or its CAD/AVL system. Planners use it to find crowded trips that need more service, stops nobody uses, and routes that run nearly empty at certain hours. Unlike student ridership readers, an APC counts everyone, so it works on open-door transit where riders are never identified.
Each sensor is mounted on the ceiling directly over the doorway, aimed straight down, and wired to power, the door-open signal and the onboard computer.
Small errors here become big ones later. A sensor a few degrees off, or a door signal that arrives late, quietly undercounts every stop for years.
If an agency uses APC data to report ridership to the FTA's National Transit Database, yes: the counts have to be checked against a manual ride-check survey and land within 5 percent.
Certification is required the first year an agency reports from APCs, again in scheduled recertification years, and when new counting equipment is installed. That last point is why install quality matters beyond the day we leave: every sensor we fit is part of the fleet the agency has to certify. We build every bus to the same written standard behind every API ProFleet rollout, so the counts from bus 60 behave like the counts from bus 6.
We open and close each door, walk real boardings and exits through it, and confirm the counts arrive at the onboard computer and in the agency's software against the right door and the right stop.
Each bus is then photographed and recorded against its bus number and VIN. See everything we install on large fleets.
Usually one sensor per door, and wide doors can need their own sensor depending on the system. We confirm the count against the manufacturer's layout for each bus model before we start.
We install the system your agency has chosen and follow that manufacturer's mounting and wiring requirements. The workmanship and testing standard stays the same whatever the brand.
Yes. Most APC systems report through the bus onboard computer, so they are commonly added to buses that already run CAD/AVL. We connect them so counts are tied to stops from day one.
They can. Certification is generally required when new counting equipment goes in, so plan the ride-check survey after the rollout. A clean, consistent install makes that survey far easier to pass.
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