Pedestrian Counting System: Minute-by-Minute Foot Traffic for the Past Hour

City of Melbourne Open Data provides minute-by-minute directional pedestrian counts for the last hour, updated every 15 minutes. The data originates from sensor devices located across the city and is current as of June 2026. Records are only created when pedestrians pass a sensor, so the dataset may not contain readings for every sensor every minute.

Use Cases

• Analyzing variations in pedestrian activity throughout the day based on minute-by-minute counts.
• Merging sensor data with location information for spatial analysis using the sensor_id column.
• Informing city planning and decision-making by understanding how people use different locations at different times.

Strengths

• Data is updated every 15 minutes, providing near real-time insights.
• Records are directional, offering more granular detail than total counts.
• Can be merged with a separate Sensor Locations dataset for spatial context.

Limitations

• Sensors 67, 68, and 69 are noted to have duplicate records as of September 2020.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data may not contain a reading for every sensor every minute, as records are only created when pedestrians pass.

Provenance

Source

City of Melbourne Open Data

Collection Method

Collected from pedestrian sensor devices located across the city.

Time Range

Rolling window of the past hour.

Freshness

Updated every 15 minutes; last metadata update was June 2026.

Geography

City of Melbourne, Australia.