Why understanding foot traffic is crucial to understanding our cities

Foot traffic must become a bigger part of the equation when we learn about our cities.

Cities are about the people that inhabit them, that work in them, that through their social, cultural, and economic contributions, help them grow. If we do not know how these people are behaving, then we’re missing out on crucial information to understand the operations of our cities. For too long, our methods of examining how people interact with cities has been dangerously approximative. Businesses, governments, and people alike have a vested interest in understanding the foot traffic in and around their area.

8,000 US retail stores closed last year because of steeper online competition, and this will continue to be a problem for tenants. Retail is not dying, however, it is just evolving. This is backed by an IHL Group study that finds that there were still significantly more store openings than closings in 2017. Retailers will continue to be successful by adopting the same smart practices that have made big name companies like Walmart so successful, as well as make Amazon confident to start opening their own department stores. Foot traffic accounts for most of a business’ sales, and retailers need to know how many people will be passing by their stores for efficient decision making. Perspective tenants of a retail location need this information to judge whether they’re choosing the right place to set up shop. High foot traffic leads to higher potential for sales, but this is not enough. For current store owners, they can use this information to know the right time to push marketing campaigns, smarter store hours, and how to better staff their stores so that they have the right number of people working throughout the week.

This problem also applies to real estate owners and brokers. These days, most urban real estate valuations take walkability and foot traffic into account. And yet much of the analysis around this uses no true metric to study the number of people who are actually walking by the properties in question. Some may use static analysis, like clicker counters, or very approximative figures, like census or sales information. But we need to replace these antiquated metrics with data that values the dynamic and ever-evolving nature of cities. That is why we use data that looks at foot traffic over large areas, throughout as many days as it takes, to understand the true nature of foot traffic in cities. We care about how the time of day, how the weather, and how any other external variable correlates to foot traffic on a block by block basis. With that kind of information, we are removing the intuition of how a property will perform with its local demographics. We are creating efficient urban analytics and making informed decisions.

Governments privilege this information in the day of Smart City innovation. We’re striving for healthier urban habits and turning our backs to private transportation. Walkability is the future for urban areas, and with precise data on how foot traffic is developing in different parts of a city, lawmakers and politicians can work to improve their cities for healthier, more eco-friendly future.

And urban residents also have the right to this information. Metrics like WalkScores are highly touted for giving people an idea of the feasibility of walking around from their residence, but they only give an idea on theoretical walking capabilities. They often do not even incorporate access to sidewalks in their assessments. Metrics that observe the usage of paths around their areas will give them the information they are asking for. On the contrary, as noise pollution becomes a bigger factor in how we choose where to live, they can learn more about the activity around their prospective residence throughout the week, from morning til eve.

If we want to better understand our properties, our work spaces, and our homes, we cannot leave this up to chance.

Kerb technologies is a DC-based startup that specializes in urban data collection and analysis. To learn more, visit kerbtechnologies.com.