20 Stories
Zone-level occupancy across a rooftop restaurant, bar and terrace.
Smart Urban Sensing
https://smarturbansensing.co.uk/case-studies/20-stories.html

Customer context
20 Stories, nineteen floors above Manchester's Spinningfields district — fine dining, a cocktail bar and an open-air terrace. Counted zones are the restaurant, grill, bar and terrace. Installation dates are not published.

Initial problem
A multi-space venue at height is not a single front door. The operator needs to hold safety, fire compliance and evacuation planning together with the sense of space a premium guest expects, and a high-rise terrace with restricted exit routes carries more overcrowding risk than a ground-floor room. Rooftop trade also moves with the weather, which makes fixed staffing assumptions weak. Discretion matters to the clientele, so the measurement method itself is a constraint.

SUS installation scope
SUS installed the Pro3 AI people counting system. The Pro3 acts as a central AI processing hub rather than a simple entrance counter: one unit connects up to seven additional cameras, covering the restaurant, grill, bar and terrace without extra processing hardware. It uses 3D stereoscopic depth sensing, with privacy masking and anonymised GDPR-compliant outputs; the published account states that no faces or personally identifiable images are captured or stored and no real footage is retained. Segregated CPU, GPU and NPU subsystems and a partitioned operating system keep device monitoring alive if the analytics layer fails.

Reporting use
The published account describes live occupancy visibility across the restaurant, grill, bar and terrace, alongside zone-level dwell time and peak-hour insight. This reporting supports questions about entry pacing, expected covers and demand-led staffing. Those applications are described uses of the system, not evidence of a particular rota change or measured service improvement.

Operational change
The documented reporting change is a zone-level view of occupancy and visitor behaviour across the venue. Waste reduction, faster service and better-aligned rotas are intended benefits in the source, not measured outcomes for 20 Stories.

Project facts
Customer: 20 Stories. Hospitality · Rooftop venue occupancy
Deployment scope: Single site. See the installation account below
Measurement focus: Real-time occupancy in four zones. Scope or reporting capability, not a verified uplift
Delivery partner: SUS. Published deployment account

Sources
https://smarturbansensing.co.uk/ai-people-counter-manchester-20-stories-case-study/

Enquiries: sales@smarturbansensing.co.uk
No independently verified commercial uplift is claimed.