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Melbourne Foot Traffic Is Back, But the Morning Commute No Longer Defines the City, New Analysis Finds

Rock Posters

Key Facts:

• Analysis of City of Melbourne pedestrian sensor data recorded 312.9 million pedestrian movements across 99 sensor locations throughout 2025, averaging around 857,000 movements per day.
• When comparing like-for-like sensor locations across 2025 and 2024, pedestrian movement grew by approximately 1.2 per cent, with the larger headline figure of 7.7 per cent reflecting expanded sensor coverage rather than a citywide surge.
• Melbourne's pedestrian activity now peaks at 5 pm rather than during the traditional morning commute, driven by lunch crowds, after-work activity, shopping, dining and events.
• The weekday-weekend gap has narrowed significantly, with weekdays averaging around 865,000 movements per day and weekends close behind at approximately 838,000.
• The findings carry implications for outdoor advertising, with Rock Posters suggesting that brands planning campaigns around the morning commute alone risk missing a large portion of their audience, and should instead plan around retail strips, cultural corridors, hospitality precincts and event areas.

MELBOURNE, 9th of June 2026 — New analysis of City of Melbourne pedestrian sensor data shows the city's foot traffic has recovered strongly through 2025, while the daily rhythm that once organised the CBD around the nine-to-five commute has shifted for good.

The analysis, released by outdoor advertising company Rock Posters, draws on the City of Melbourne's public pedestrian counting system. Throughout 2025, the dataset recorded 312.9 million pedestrian movements from 99 active sensor locations, averaging around 857,000 movements per day.

The headline numbers point to a busy city. Looking beneath them tells a more useful story. When the same May to December period is compared across 2024 and 2025 using only the 94 sensor locations active in both years, pedestrian movement grew by around 1.2 per cent, from 181.5 million to 183.6 million. The larger 7.7 per cent rise seen across all sensors reflects expanded sensor coverage rather than a citywide surge.

The timing of movement has changed as well. In 2025, Melbourne's pedestrian activity was strongest from midday through to early evening, peaking at 5 pm with around 77,600 movements in that hour alone, followed by the 1 pm, midday and 4 pm periods. The morning commute still matters, yet it is now one peak among several driven by lunch crowds, after-work activity, shopping, dining and events.

The weekday-weekend gap has narrowed, too. Weekdays averaged around 865,000 movements per day across 2025, with weekends close behind at around 838,000.

"The 'dead CBD' story stopped being true a while ago, but the 'everything is back to normal' story is not right either," a Rock Posters spokesperson said. "Melbourne is busy again. It is just busy at different times, in different places and for different reasons than it was in 2019."

The pattern reflects a broader national recovery. Colliers' 2025 CBD Retail Report found national CBD foot traffic had returned to within six per cent of pre-pandemic levels, with Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide already exceeding their 2019 benchmarks. Rock Posters says the data carries a clear message for brands planning outdoor and street poster campaigns.

"When the busiest hour of the day is 5 pm rather than 8 am, and weekends are almost matching weekdays, planning a campaign around the morning commute alone leaves a lot of the audience on the table," the spokesperson said. "The opportunity now is to plan around where people are actually walking, waiting and gathering, in retail strips, cultural corridors, hospitality precincts and event areas, rather than relying on outdated assumptions about how a city moves."

The shift comes as physical movement remains central to Australian daily life. The Outdoor Media Association reports that Out of Home advertising reaches 97 per cent of Australians weekly, around 22 million people aged 14 and over, with eight in ten Australians leaving home each day.

The full analysis is available at https://www.rockposters.com.au/australian-foot-traffic-is-back-just-not-the-old-commuter-city-style/

About us:

Rock Posters is an Australian outdoor advertising company specialising in street posters, billboards and poster walls across Melbourne, Sydney, and other regions across Australia. Operating since 1986, the company helps brands plan physical campaigns around real audience movement.

Contact details:

Rock Posters

226 Normanby Avenue, Thornbury VIC 3071

03 9416 9966