As warehouses and industrial sites face increasing pressure to improve workplace/ warehouse safety, technology suppliers are expanding the use of monitoring and analytics tools aimed at reducing interactions between pedestrians and materials handling equipment. Companies including Hyster are continuing to invest in systems that provide fleet managers with greater visibility into pedestrian activity around lift trucks and other warehouse vehicles. Hyster’s latest launch is a pedestrian detection event dashboard that uses data captured through its Hyster Reaction™ pedestrian awareness camera system and Hyster Tracker™ telemetry platform to help operations identify high-risk areas, monitor operator behaviour and analyse pedestrian proximity events.
The pedestrian detection event dashboard tracks pedestrians at ranges up to 5 metres from a lift truck. This information enables operations to reduce the risk of pedestrian- and lift truck-related accidents by adjusting pedestrian boundaries, having discussions with operators, or taking other actions.
The camera system was developed using extensive real-world photographic data and adapts to various lighting and environmental conditions to track for physical human features, increasing tracking accuracy and allowing the system to catalogue the total and average number of detection events per day and per truck, how close pedestrians get to the truck, and the number and location of events. It also captures the quantity of events that occurred when the truck was moving or stationery, as well as the date and time of each event.
Demanding materials handling applications are already characterised by harsh conditions and businesses can’t afford the added safety risk of improper operator behaviour… This dashboard equips operations with the information they need to address safety concerns, keep teams moving and deliver the high efficiency and productivity they require day in and day out.
said Clay Hendricks, Global Telemetry Product Manager, Hyster.
The pedestrian awareness camera solution, which collects the data for the dashboard, can accurately identify pedestrians at ranges up to 5 metres through a 110-degree field of view and provides automatic alerts to the lift truck operator when a pedestrian is detected. Operations can choose a camera system with audible and visual alerts only, or with optional traction alerts. The audible and visual alerts use a tone sequence to communicate pedestrian proximity and a light to indicate which zone the pedestrian is in on the truck-mounted operator remote. Optional traction alerts automatically and gradually slow down the lift truck, encouraging lift truck operators to take action to avoid the detected pedestrian by slowing down, steering away or both.
