Calculating and broadcasting an area's population density based on cell signal

摘要

The subject technology determines population density of an area in order to map one or more persons to smaller areas such as bathrooms, stores, and lines. Based on a user's current geolocation, the subject technology utilizes one or more nearby wireless signals transmitted from computing devices to determine a population density of an area near the user's geolocation. The signals from each device can include unique IDs for identifying the device associated with the ID. Mobile devices such as cell phones constantly broadcast a cell signal and/or other types of signals with unique identifiers. These signals are anonymized to protect any personal information associated with the mobile devices transmitting these signals while still being able associate a device to a respective signal. The subject technology therefore can determine an area's population density based on these anonymized signals by detecting one or more associated devices near the geolocation of the user.

主权项

1. A machine-implemented method for determining a population density of an area based at least on a geolocation of a user, the method comprising:
receiving, by one or more first computing devices, a geolocation shared by a user; determining, by the one or more first computing devices, an area of interest of the user, wherein the area of interest is determined, in part, by the geolocation shared by the user; determining, by the one or more first computing devices, one or more second computing devices in proximity to the determined area of interest of the user based on one or more wireless signals transmitted from the one or more second computing devices; and determining, by the one or more first computing devices, a population density of an area near the determined area of interest of the user based on the determined one or more second computing devices in proximity to the determined area of interest of the user, wherein the population density of the area represents a level of activity by one or more persons.