Pilot study: Evaluating the feasibility of real-time kinematic GNSS as a tool for tracking movable chairs in outdoor urban public spaces

As urban public spaces evolve to accommodate human activities, there arises a pressing need for effective methodologies to understand public life within these environments. This pilot study assesses the accuracy of the Real-Time Kinematic Global Navigation Satellite System (RTK GNSS) in the Toyohashi South Side Station Square, aiming to validate its utility as a privacy-sensitive tool for studying public life, particularly in tracking movable chairs in urban settings. The findings indicate that RTK GNSS exhibits sufficient accuracy in recording the positions of movable chairs, thus facilitating public life studies. Given the variability of GNSS accuracy across environments, we propose the Silhouette Index as a metric for evaluating GNSS suitability across different scales. A Silhouette Index exceeding 0.9 signifies highly accurate data, suitable for comprehending the spatial arrangement and utilization of movable chairs in compact urban spaces. Conversely, an index below 0.8 indicates insufficient accuracy for this purpose. Nevertheless, RTK GNSS, akin to GPS, offers diverse applications in urban research. It can aid in analyzing pedestrian flows in city centers or expansive parks, as well as elucidating spatial behavioral patterns among distinct demographic groups in large-scale urban public spaces.