Counting device and corresponding method

A counting device comprising:

• a memory coupled with processing components and configured to receive:
• a set of data in relation to geographical areas that together forms a grid of a geographical space, and
• mobile telephony location cell data associating a location cell identifier, a location cell position and a location cell geographical coverage, and
• the processing components including:
• an anonymizer configured to determine, for a given location cell, one or more geographical areas overlapping the geographical coverage of the given location cell, and to compute a detection value for each geographical area, and
• a counter configured to receive mobile telephony signaling data associating, each time, a mobile telephony identifier, a location cell identifier and a time marker, and to determine, for a given time range, a count of mobile telephony devices for each geographical area based on the mobile telephony signaling data and the one or more detection values associated with each geographical area,
• wherein the anonymizer is configured:
• to modify the geographical coverage of each given location cell by determining an effective radius based on a density of location cells around the given location cell,
• for a given location cell, to modify the geographical coverage in the form of a main substantially oval lobe and of a secondary substantially oval lobe, both having one end at the antenna of the location cell and being substantially symmetrical in relation to a main emission axis of this antenna, and such that the main lobe is disposed on the main emission side of this antenna and is larger than the secondary lobe,
• to determine a respective ratio between an overlapping surface between each respective geographical area and the modified geographical coverage and the surface of the modified geographical coverage, and
• to assign to each respective geographical area a detection value equal to the respective ratio.