Systems and methods for operating an elevator system are provided. Aspects includes receiving, by a processor, a call request for an elevator car in an elevator system. Receiving sensor data from a plurality of sensors associated with the elevator car, wherein the plurality of sensors are configured to collect sensor data from one or more predefined areas associated with the elevator car. Determining an occupancy level in the elevator car based on a feature vector, generated by a machine learning model, comprising a plurality of features extracted from the sensor data and operating, by the processor, the elevator car based at least in part on the occupancy level.