How COVID-19 affects pedestrian traffic in Melbourne's CBD

COVID-19 restrictions and shutdowns continue to have a significant effect on reducing traffic and pedestrian movement.

According to data that ARRB's National Transport Performance Centre (NTPC) has collated, there has been a major change in the amount of pedestrian movement. And we've got the numbers to prove it.

Click the play button to see a pedestrian visualisation of Melbourne.

This visualisation was designed to show the change in pedestrian movement around the Melbourne CBD over the period that COVID-19 restrictions were put in place.  The plot shows daily pedestrian counts from the City of Melbourne starting in the first week of February through to first week of April.
Some points of interest:

• Weekend volumes are typically lower than weekday volumes
• Weekday volumes are increasing in the first week of February and seem to stabilise in the second
• Volume around the universities increase in the first week of March
• There’s a spike in pedestrian volumes at a few sites for Moomba weekend
• Pedestrian volume starts falling from the middle of March
• Dramatic drop in pedestrian volume in the week beginning 23 March
• Pedestrian volumes continue to fall through to end of the video (5 April)

Learn more about the NTPC at ARRB here.