Capacity Calculator

The Capacity Calculator helps work out a Capacity value for Delay Points and Waiting Zones. It has two primary functions:

For social distancing situations, you might want to limit the capacity of waiting areas but may not know the capacity limit to use in a Waiting Zone or Delay Point.

Alternatively, where Occupancy Rating and Capacity Factor are known, and you want to determine the object’s Maximum Occupancy to use as Capacity.

Occupancy Rating - the number of people normally allowed in the Space, e.g. under local statutes, fire code etc.
Capacity Factor - is the percentage of Occupancy Rating to be used in social distancing conditions, e.g. CDC recommends a Capacity Factor of 50% of normal Occupancy Rating.

The two values combine to determine Maximum Occupancy:

Occupancy Rating	x	Capacity Factor	=	Maximum Occupancy
350	x	100%	=	350
350	x	80%	=	280
350	x	50%	=	175

You can also use both together, to understand how socially-distanced capacity compares to Occupancy Rating and Capacity Factor.

For example, this delay point representing a waiting area on a station concourse, where people can see the information boards:

In the Delay Point and Waiting Zone property dialogs, locate the Capacity Calculator tool:

It will be enabled if:

The model contains accessible space, and
The object's navigation point is within accessible space. Navigation point is:
- The focal point, for Delay Points and target Waiting Zones
- The object center, for filtering Waiting Zones

To give conservative capacity estimates, two variants of a circle-occupancy method are used, which examine the space in slightly different ways:

Grid of circles placed in a square arrangement; social distance spaced.
- Spatially inefficient. Gives a lower, more conservative estimate of capacity.
Grid of circles placed in a hexagon arrangement; social distance spaced.
- Spatially more efficient. Gives a higher, less conservative estimate of capacity.

For both options, capacity estimation will count the number of circles which:

Have a center inside any accessible space;
Have a center inside the Delay Point or Waiting Zone in question;
Have a center point not less than maximum system entity radius from a Delay Point or Waiting Zone boundary;
- The largest system entities are the UK and North American entities, each having a maximum radius of 0.43m.

Circles meeting all 3 requirements will be included in the capacity count. The aim is to provide conservative low and high occupancy estimates. The user will be asked to choose their preferred estimate, which will become the Delay Point or Waiting Zone capacity.