Vanderbilt University was undergoing an assessment review of physical spaces across dining locations and libraries.
They were in need of a solution that provided granular building and space-specific utilization data for their analysis to ensure buildings are adequately populated.
Additionally, they were interested in providing the campus community with data on how busy popular student spaces are 24/7. The intent was to improve student experiences and decrease frustration when heavily trafficked places like dining halls and libraries get crowded.
Vanderbilt learned about Occuspace in a Chronicle of Higher Education webinar and reached out to understand our ability to meet their space assessment and student support needs.
The Occuspace privacy-friendly sensors were installed across five (5) libraries and 15 dining locations.
Real-time and historical space utilization data is being used by the administration to evaluate occupancy trends to make operational decisions, adjust staffing requirements, and to control traffic during peak times.
Students can view real-time library and dining location crowd levels on the free Waitz mobile app and the Campus Dining and Libraries websites.
The Vanderbilt Library and Dining teams have been able to more accurately assess overall traffic in the spaces they operate.
They use Occuspace data to analyze utilization across library buildings and dining locations to identify trends and supply campus leadership with data for ongoing space assessments.
The ability for students to use the real-time data to plan their meal times has helped organically level the curve of traditional peak dining hours that can stress staff, food supply, and other dining operations.
Additionally, the Vanderbilt marketing teams put considerable effort into announcing the service to the community with multiple news articles in campus outlets (like here) and social media promotion.
Given Occuspace’s success to date, the company will be expanding its technology to the 13,000 sq ft Wond’ry Center for Innovation & Design.
Contact Us to learn more about how Occuspace is helping university leaders optimize their physical spaces to better serve student and administrator needs.
