Crowd-counting technology within the Smart City context: understanding, trust, and acceptance

In city centers worldwide, including the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Bamberg's old town in Germany, alleviating pedestrian overcrowding is a pressing concern. Leveraging crowd-counting technologies with real-time data collection offers promising solutions, yet poses challenges regarding data privacy and informed consent. This preregistered study examines public response to a Smart City Bamberg project aimed at addressing pedestrian congestion through crowd-counting methods. We investigate informed consent by looking at understanding and acceptance of the project, as well as influencing factors, such as effectiveness of project explanation and trust. Through a three-stage study comprising exploratory interviews, a field study, and an online study, we reveal that the focus of project explanations significantly impacts understanding: Functional explanations, emphasizing project purpose, enhance comprehension compared to mechanistic explanations detailing project components. Additionally, project trust positively correlates with acceptance. Notably, understanding impacts acceptance through increased project trust. These findings underscore the importance of fostering understanding to garner public acceptance of crowd-counting projects. It is important, especially in the case of projects which aim to improve quality of life while also prioritizing robust data protection, that decisions regarding informed consent are grounded in comprehension rather than on preconceived biases against data sharing. Efforts should prioritize effective explanations to bolster project trust and consequently, promote acceptance.