The challenge
Sydney has spent fifteen years on pedestrianisation, cycle lanes and public transport, but planners and businesses were limited by the lack of real-time data. Share bikes had grown tenfold, from fewer than 400 in 2022 to more than 4,000, and community concern about riding on footpaths had no data behind it. Mounting cameras on street-light assets meant extra power circuits and complex approvals.
The approach
Oxford Street was chosen for the trial, using the council's relationships with the local business community and timed to coincide with a separated cycleway. Sensors were installed under awnings on businesses' own power: simpler and cheaper than street-light mounting. Countculture's AI counts and classifies footpath users, and identifies share bikes and cargo bikes on footpaths.
The result
The team can now ask whether footpath riding follows share-bike availability, whether a cycleway resolves it or habit persists, and how the night-time economy moves through the street. Anonymous sensor data answers questions the city previously had no way to measure.
Sensors under shop awnings, on the businesses' own power: a simpler install than street-light mounting, and a new way for a council to work with a retail strip.
