Browary Warszawskie is one of the most modern mixed-use projects in Warsaw. Now, thanks to Echo Investment’s cooperation with Google Cloud and Aioniq, it has been enriched with a solution that provides precise data on traffic and occupant volume. This pioneering project is based on artificial intelligence and collects data in real time to observe customer preferences, improve offerings and make strategic marketing decisions.
In 2021. Echo Investment officially opened Browary Warszawskie, a large mixed-use “destination” project located in the heart of Warsaw’s Wola district. Since then, Browary Warszawskie has been attracting visitors with its open, green public spaces and well-curated food and entertainment offerings. In 2021, 26 food and beverage concepts opened here, including Food Hall Browary, popular among Varsovians, with 12 restaurant outlets and bars. The Brewery has become a meeting place popular with businesses, Warsaw residents, tourists, celebrities and influencers alike. Given its popularity, Echo Investment wanted to provide its tenants, especially restaurateurs, with greater insight into how people use the space. Google Cloud helped answer this question.
“The need to partner with Google Cloud and Aioniq was born in the marketing department,” says Dominika Telega-Bałdyga, Marketing Manager at Echo Investment. “We wanted to monitor the movement and behavior of people throughout the Warsaw Breweries complex and show our current and future tenants, restaurateurs and investors, how people move, react to the space and organized marketing actions.”
Machine learning for monitoring people movement
Due to the size of Warsaw Breweries, it is difficult to effectively monitor people movement. The task was all the more difficult because it is an open development with no single entrance or exit. This is a perfect example of a challenge that can only be met with technology. Moreover, the bar was set high, as the solution used had to demonstrate a high level of accuracy. The project was made possible through a partnership with Aioniq, a Google Cloud Premier Partner.
“We are obsessed with user experience,” says Waldemar Olbryk, CEO of Archicom, a residential developer belonging to the Echo Investment Group. Although primarily associated with Archicom, Waldemar Olbryk is actively involved in projects aimed at finding ways in which technology can add value to the Group as a whole. – Very often developers build a project, sell it and move on. We, however, want to learn how our buildings are used, long after we’re done building them, and apply those lessons to new projects, he comments. “I call this DevOps for real estate, driven by technology.”
At the end of 2021, Echo Investment began building its traffic monitoring solution, starting with the installation of cameras strategically placed throughout the Warsaw Breweries. The traffic monitoring system used consists of several parts. The most important component is, of course, the artificial intelligence model responsible for so-called “computer vision” (Computer Vision). It is this part of the software that is responsible for recognizing human-type objects in video images, which are provided in real time from multiple cameras simultaneously. For security purposes, the images from the cameras are analyzed directly at the cameras and are not stored anywhere. Object recognition data in the image is converted immediately into text information in the form of events. Such a text file is sent to Google Cloud Platform. It is there that the text data is stored in the Google BigQuery data warehouse for later presentation in the form of reports using analytical tools such as Google Data Studio.
“Using Google Data Studio, we create three levels of reports: year-to-date, monthly and daily,” says Michal Puterman, managing director at Aioniq and one of the main architects of the traffic monitoring platform for Echo Investment. “This means that we can get a very quick and transparent idea of where trends are heading in the short, medium and long term. This allows Echo Investment’s marketing to make the right decisions based on solid data.”
“Using Google Data Studio, we create three levels of reports: year-to-date, monthly and daily,” says Michal Puterman, managing director at Aioniq and one of the main architects of the traffic monitoring platform for Echo Investment. “This means that we can see very quickly and transparently where trends are heading in the short, medium and long term. This allows Echo Investment’s marketing to make the right decisions based on solid data.”
Presenting the value of a project throughout its life cycle.
With the help of Google Cloud and Aioniq technology, Echo Investment’s new solution has provided the company with unprecedented insight into how people move through its spaces. Thanks to the volume of data the new platform can collect, the Developer is able to accurately monitor the movement of tens of thousands of visitors in real time.
Echo Investment now has a 24/7, accurate, real-time view of the movement of people in one of the largest and most complex urban spaces. All of this has been achieved at a small fraction of the cost it would have taken to manually survey the area, which could not be done continuously and would be inaccurate. The cameras’ wide coverage and ability to analyze quickly means that the developer can not only track the entrances and exits of Warsaw Breweries, but also the movement in the space itself. It is these groundbreaking insights that open the door to new ways of developing urban spaces and building relationships with partners.
“Leveraging our experience and knowledge gained from projects in different sectors of the market, we focus on synergizing activities and implementing best practices in our subsequent city-building projects. When we started work on Browary Warszawskie six years ago, presenting it as the first “destination” project, it was a groundbreaking concept in the Polish market, because its goal was to create a real, multifunctional city to live, work and visit. Today, looking at the finished project, we are proud that this goal has been realized and has been a huge success,” says Rafał Mazurczak, Echo Investment’s board member responsible for commercial projects.
