The Importance of Measuring Green Space Performance Near Town Centres

View of city centre from park in distance

Footfall is an important indicator of an area’s economic health and measuring green space performance near town centres can give vital insights into how high street footfall is impacted by the presence of green spaces.

Parks, gardens, areas of outstanding natural beauty (AONB) and other green spaces are proven to be very beneficial for human health and urban environments in making places more attractive and liveable. 

By understanding how people use and interact with green spaces near town centres, managers, planners, HAZ Officers and businesses can identify areas where investment in green infrastructure, tourist attractions, events and future commercial developments could be justified and used to help boost visitor activity and local revenue. 

But, using traditional people counting hardware is time-consuming, expensive to install and often unreliable when it comes to providing a true representation of the visitor population and movement in a specific location. Similarly, Wi-Fi and sensor-based technology will only capture a limited volume of foot traffic with minimal information on who visits a green space and town. 

Measure green space performance with footfall and visitor behaviour data 

Green space performance data available from our Place Informatics dashboard is far more granular and precise, combining GPS data from GDPR compliant mobile apps and AI software to track visitor flow, frequency, hotspots, origins and much more. 

Some of the key benefits of measuring green space performance include: 

  • Understand visitor demographics – Get access to your visitors  socio-economic grades (AB, C1, C2, D, E), age, and gender profiles and understand real-world behaviour and habits to enhance customer experience across shops and services in your town; meeting the needs of those who live nearby or visit for leisure.  
  • Categorise visitors into core, local and regional – identify where people travel from across the UK to use local parks and green spaces near town centres. This information can be used to target marketing campaigns and improve transport links, journey time, and car park access for those coming from further afield.
  • Make accurate footfall predictions – measure the busiest time of day for peak trading periods, average dwell time, visit frequency, hotspots and popular access points using heatmaps. This data can help managers and event organisers anticipate crowded areas, possible bottlenecks inside or outside stores, and plan weather dependent activities accordingly to optimise foot traffic for further commercial opportunities. 
  • Benchmarking – Look at green space performance for national, country and urban parks nearby and compare its impact on other town centres in the region with the highest footfall traffic. 

In summary, measuring green space performance is important for a number of reasons, providing a wealth of rich insights that can be used to improve the efficiency of your town centre, business and green space. 

We’ve been helping clients like Coventry War Memorial Park measure their green space performance to successfully host a variety of events that attract tourists all over the UK, including free music events on Sundays, aimed at core and local visitors to bring more people into the park.

If you’re looking to maximise the potential of your town centre, green space or business, book now to arrange a demo of our data using the calendly link here: https://calendly.com/clive-hall/diary-booking 

Share:

More Posts

Contact our
customer support

Contact a member of our customer support team for dashboard assistance

Speak to our
sales team

Speak to a member of our sales team for more information or to book a demo with us

Speak to our support team today

Speak to our sales team today