Beta testing the night counting algorithm

Night counts were an important feature underlying the development of the Telraam S2 as this was not possible with the original Telraam V1 devices. It has taken considerable additional work and training effort, but we have developed an approach that we think will provide plenty of additional traffic data for each device, and we have tested this in our lab and on some internal devices.

The night counts will give you data on the number of motorised vehicles passing by when it’s dark. There will be plenty to say soon about how this works and how we will display this data. However, in order to take the next step we need your help, and we need more real-world testing and validation.

Before deploying the new firmware(s) to the complete Telraam S2 fleet, we need to carry out an open beta phase so we are looking for volunteers who would like to assist us. Our goal is to test the stability of our new firmwares and the accuracy of the new night counting method on a broader sample of Telraam S2 devices. The initial beta period will run for approximately two weeks, after which we would provide an update and carry out an evaluation before planning a public launch of the night counts.

Who are we looking for?

We are looking to recruit a variety of Telraam S2 device owners with different locations that will allow us to put the new algorithm through its paces. 

We are looking for 25-50 beta users, whom we will select from the applicants based on parameters such as:

• Location and night time environment
• Traffic volumes
• Current Telraam S2 operational health check metrics

Please note that this is only possible for owners of Telraam S2 devices, not Telraam V1 devices, and it does mean that the device needs to be currently active and connected to our servers.

What would being a volunteer mean? 

If selected, since we have the ability to perform over-the-air firmware updates, we won’t ask you to actually do anything with your device, but we will ask you to make at least one 15 minute validation count at night (before sunrise or after sunset), and another one during the day. You can always do more than one of each, which would always be helpful, but is not strictly required. More detailed instructions will follow if you are selected. Overall this would require around 45 minutes of your time. 

The only visible change to you on the device during the beta period would be more “cars” counted (as on the device all night objects are displayed as cars, even if they contain heavy vehicles and maybe a few cyclists or motorbikes too), while nothing would change on your online dashboard (as we will not display night counts on the website during the beta period). Finally, participating in the beta will not influence the daytime counts, so your counts during the day will be unaffected, safeguarding the homogeneity of your data over time.

We thank you in advance for your support, and hope to launch the night counts with you in the near future!

Update March 26th: We selected all our volunteers and applications to be a beta-tester are now closed.