There are many ways to research a property, but the original method was to count foot traffic. Before publicly available sales price information or lease comp databases, one of the best ways to understand the utilization and value of a building was to count how many people entered and exited. Initially, counting was done manually, but eventually, innovations replaced expensive and unreliable human counters. Turnstiles became popular in offices for counting people and granting access. Pressure mats, widely used in supermarkets, served the dual purpose of signaling automatic doors to open. Beam sensors gained popularity in the 1980s and 1990s as their prices dropped, thanks to their increased use as a garage door safety feature. Today, there are more sophisticated ways to count foot traffic, allowing for much more than just counting.
Turnstiles remain a popular tool, especially in offices. Now, they are connected to building systems like elevators, occupancy sensors, and booking reservation systems to better track who is in the building and their activities. Turnstile data became mainstream post-pandemic, serving as a proxy for the return-to-office trend. With hybrid work becoming the norm, office occupancy is less important than office utilization. Turnstile data is now analyzed and overlaid with other datasets to help office owners and tenants understand the value of their spaces. Turnstiles and door locks, opened with unique badges, can identify how each person and team interacts with the building.
Access control devices and occupancy sensors are helpful but have their limits. Traditional devices struggle to track behavior once someone enters an area. However, computer vision is now being deployed to provide a better understanding of people’s actions inside a space. This technology can anonymously track people as they move and register their activities. For retailers, this means seeing how customers interact with merchandise or respond to signage. “By monitoring where people are and what they are doing, computer vision can help inform everything from cleaning schedules to HVAC controls to layout design,” said Catie Sirie, Solution Leader, North America Facilities Management, Energy Management, and Footfall Analytics at MRI Software. Her team works with landlords and tenants to optimize space usage based on actual usage data.
In retail, this data can reveal how different retailers complement each other. In shopping centers, computer vision shows how shoppers “cross-pollinate” different stores or navigate their journey. The same cameras can be used outside the property as well. Some property owners and retailers in dense urban areas use external-facing cameras to track where their patrons shop before and after visiting their establishment. “As more retail space is dedicated to entertainment, it is useful for building owners and retailers alike to know how those entertainment options actually impact sales,” Sirie said. Retailers can now test the impact of events, pop-up shops, or layout changes.
The rise of mobile phones has given the real estate industry another data point for property research. Mobile location providers aggregate data from apps to determine not only how many people visit an area but also their demographics. This data can be added to other foot traffic measurements to provide better context. “Mobile phone data can be really complementary to the data learned about online foot traffic,” said Sirie. Grouping shoppers into personas (like early-morning power walkers or after-work traffic dodgers) helps uncover their actual shopping habits.
Foot traffic used to be a simple number. Landlords and tenants previously focused on the number of people visiting a property on a given day when considering rent price and lease terms. Now, the concept is more nuanced. Defining foot traffic by a brand’s target market helps both sides better determine the appropriate value. “We see our data being used by both landlords and tenants for lease negotiations,” Sirie said.
The number of people visiting a building has always been an important property metric. It might be more important than ever since we can now know who those people are, where they come from, and what they did while there. Enhanced understanding of foot traffic has also democratized it. In the past, only landlords could collect the data, giving them an informational advantage. Now, foot traffic data is available (for a price) to anyone, whether retailer, investor, or competitor. Landlords must now collect even more data to make better pricing decisions, satisfy tenants, and attract more visitors.