Australian Foot Traffic Is Back, Just Not The Old Commuter City Style

Key insights

• Australian CBD foot traffic has recovered, but pedestrian movement has not returned to the old five-day commuter pattern.
• Colliers’ 2025 CBD Retail Report found national CBD foot traffic had returned to within 6% of pre-pandemic levels, with Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide already exceeding 2019 benchmarks.
• Melbourne’s pedestrian data shows why total foot traffic alone can be misleading. Across common sensor locations, May to December pedestrian movement grew by only 1.2% year on year, compared with 7.7% across all recorded sensors.
• Melbourne’s strongest pedestrian periods in 2025 were not limited to the morning commute. Movement peaked around 5pm, with strong volume also recorded around lunch, in the afternoon, and in the early evening.
• Weekday traffic still leads weekend traffic in Melbourne, but the gap is smaller than the old commuter-city model might suggest, with weekdays averaging around 865,000 movements per day and weekends around 838,000.
• Retail, hospitality, events, tourism, education and nightlife are playing a larger role in how Australian cities generate pedestrian activity.
• Outdoor advertising strategies need to move beyond blanket commuter visibility and account for where people are actually walking, waiting, gathering and discovering.
• Street posters, billboards and poster walls are strongest when they are planned around real audience movement, not outdated assumptions about CBD behaviour.

For years, the story of Australian CBDs after COVID was told through extremes.

First, the city was dead. Then, depending on the headline, it was back. But neither version properly captures what has happened to pedestrian movement across Australia’s major cities.

Foot traffic has returned in meaningful ways. In some CBDs, it has moved beyond pre-pandemic levels. Colliers’ 2025 CBD Retail Report found national CBD foot traffic had rebounded to within six per cent of pre-pandemic levels, with Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide already exceeding their 2019 benchmarks. Sydney and Melbourne are still recovering, supported by upgrades to public transport infrastructure and precinct revitalisation.

But the old commuter city has not simply snapped back into place.

The five-day office worker is no longer the single organising force of CBD movement. Hybrid work has changed weekday rhythms. Weekend activity has become more important. Retail precincts can recover differently from office districts. Transport upgrades are shifting where people enter, pause and move through the city.

For Australian brands, this is the important part: people are back in public spaces, but they are not always moving in the same ways, at the same times, or for the same reasons.

That changes how outdoor advertising should be planned.

The “dead CBD” story is outdated

The idea that Australian CBDs have been permanently hollowed out does not hold up against the latest data.

CBD foot traffic has recovered strongly across the country, especially in markets where office attendance, retail demand, transport access and population growth are working together. Colliers’ reporting shows national CBD foot traffic close to pre-pandemic benchmarks, with Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide leading the recovery.

The retail sector is also responding. Rising foot traffic has supported renewed demand for prime CBD retail locations, with Colliers noting that competition for exposure to high foot-traffic levels continues to shape the Australian retail market.

This does not mean every CBD has recovered evenly. Sydney and Melbourne have had a more complex path back, shaped by larger office markets, hybrid work patterns, major construction, transport changes and shifts in inner-city retail behaviour.

That unevenness is exactly why the conversation needs to move beyond “CBDs are back” or “CBDs are dead.”

Melbourne shows why foot traffic is no longer a single number

Melbourne is one of the clearest case studies for why broad CBD recovery figures only tell part of the story.

At a headline level, the City of Melbourne’s pedestrian sensor data shows strong public movement across 2025. Over the full year, the uploaded dataset recorded 312.9 million pedestrian movements from 99 active sensor locations, averaging about 857,000 movements per day.

But the more useful insight comes from looking beneath that total.

The uploaded data covers 13 May to 31 December 2024 and the full calendar year of 2025. When the same May-to-December period is compared across both years, total recorded pedestrian movements increased from 184.1 million in 2024 to 198.3 million in 2025, a lift of around 7.7%.

However, that top-line result includes changes in sensor coverage. When the comparison is limited to the 94 sensor locations active across both periods, the increase is much smaller: 181.5 million movements in 2024 compared with 183.6 million in 2025, a lift of around 1.2%.

Melbourne pedestrian counts	13 May–31 Dec 2024	13 May–31 Dec 2025	Change
All recorded sensor locations	184.1m	198.3m	+7.7%
Daily average, all sensors	790,045	850,909	+7.7%
Common sensor locations only	181.5m	183.6m	+1.2%
Daily average, common sensors only	778,771	788,146	+1.2%

There are also meaningful differences by time of day. In 2025, Melbourne’s pedestrian movement was strongest from midday through early evening, with the highest hourly volumes recorded around 5pm, followed by 1pm, 12pm and 4pm.

Hour of day	Average recorded movements per day
8am	39,247
12pm	69,599
1pm	70,800
4pm	69,541
5pm	77,569
6pm	62,302
8pm	39,565

This helps explain why the old commuter model is too narrow. Morning movement still matters, but Melbourne’s strongest pedestrian periods are not limited to people arriving at work. Lunch, afternoon, after-work, shopping, dining, events and evening activity all contribute to the city’s movement profile.

The weekday-weekend split adds another layer. In 2025, weekdays averaged around 865,000 recorded movements per day, while weekends averaged around 838,000. Weekdays remained stronger overall, but the gap was not dramatic.

Day type, 2025	Total recorded movements	Days measured	Average per day
Weekdays	225.8m	261	864,955
Weekends	87.1m	104	837,693

For brands, this changes the way Melbourne should be read.

The CBD is active, but not in one simple pattern. A campaign planned around weekday commuting alone may miss the value of lunch periods, evening movement, retail precincts, weekend visitation and event-led spikes. A campaign planned only around total foot traffic may miss the difference between a fast-moving commuter corridor and a slower, more engaged shopping or hospitality strip.

Melbourne’s data makes the broader post-COVID point clear: pedestrian traffic has returned, but the value sits in understanding where, when and why people are moving. For outdoor advertising, location strategy is more important than ever.

The city is becoming more experience-led

Leisure, events, retail and social activity are playing a bigger role in how cities feel busy again.

The Australasian Railway Association’s 2025 Value of Rail report points to varied recovery across Australian public transport systems, including strong performance in some weekend and leisure travel segments. It also notes that Sydney light rail passenger demand now exceeds pre-pandemic levels, while Perth had nearly regained pre-COVID train trip volumes by 2024.

This aligns with what many people now experience in major cities. CBDs can feel quieter on some office days and highly active around events, shopping periods, hospitality peaks, nightlife, festivals and major sporting fixtures.

Retail precincts are recovering faster than the old office rhythm

Colliers’ CBD retail reporting points to rising foot traffic, renewed tenant demand and stronger interest in prime locations. National CBD foot traffic is close to pre-pandemic levels, while Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide have already passed their 2019 benchmarks.

This matters because retail foot traffic behaves differently from commuter traffic.

A commuter may pass through quickly with a specific destination in mind. A shopper, diner or eventgoer may move more slowly, pause more often, notice more of the surrounding environment and be more open to discovery.

That makes retail and lifestyle precincts particularly valuable for physical brand presence.

For example, a fashion campaign, festival launch, hospitality brand, entertainment promotion, or FMCG activation may gain more value from being visible in a high-energy retail or nightlife precinct than from relying solely on office commuter routes.

Outdoor media now has to follow the new city rhythm

Australians are still moving through public spaces at scale.

The Outdoor Media Association reports that Out of Home reaches 97% of Australians weekly, or around 22 million people aged 14+. OMA also reports that 8 in 10 Australians leave home daily and that Australians make 95 million trips each day.

Those numbers are a strong reminder that even after COVID, remote work and digital life, physical movement remains a major part of Australian daily behaviour.

The challenge for brands is understanding where that movement now gathers.

The old outdoor logic was often built around predictable commuter repetition. That still has value, especially for roadside, transit and CBD campaigns. But the strongest outdoor strategies now need to account for a more flexible city.

That means asking:

• Where are people moving on weekdays?
• Where are they gathering on weekends?
• Which precincts are growing?
• Which transport changes are redirecting foot traffic?
• Where are retail, hospitality, and events creating attention?
• Which locations give the campaign the right audience, not just the biggest audience?

For brands using street posters, this is where precinct planning becomes especially powerful.

Street poster campaigns can work with the grain of the city. They can be placed around cultural corridors, music venues, shopping strips, universities, nightlife areas, transport-adjacent streets and neighbourhoods where audiences are already moving with intent.

The goal is simply to show up where the right people are already walking, waiting, gathering, discovering and deciding.

What this means for Australian brands

The return of foot traffic presents brands with a major opportunity, but only if they update how they think about place.

Pre-COVID assumptions are not enough. A campaign planned around 2019 commuter behaviour may miss the strongest moments with the audience in 2026.

A billboard can build broad awareness across high-volume roads and transport corridors. A street poster campaign can create dense visibility inside cultural and retail precincts. A poster wall can make a campaign feel present in the real world. Strong creative execution can move from the street into social media, search, and conversation.

The most effective campaigns will be built for the street from the start. That means:

• Strong contrast
• Simple messaging 
• Clear hierarchy
• Fast readability
• Location strategy to match audience movement patterns
• Digital pathway for next steps ready

Discuss strategy

Australian foot traffic has returned, but the old commuter city has not come back in the same shape. The post-COVID city is less predictable, more flexible and more precinct-led. It is shaped by work, but also by retail, events, leisure, transport, tourism, hospitality, education and culture.

For brands, this should strengthen the case for outdoor advertising.

When movement becomes more fragmented, location strategy matters more. Brands need to understand where people are walking, gathering, shopping, commuting, socialising and spending time now.

The value of outdoor is no longer only in blanket commuter visibility. It is in placing the right message in the right physical environment, at the moments when people are already moving through the city with purpose.

Rock Posters helps brands, agencies and event teams plan high-impact street poster, billboard and outdoor campaigns around the places where people are actually walking, gathering and paying attention. If you want to place your campaign in the right streets, precincts and high-visibility locations, get in touch with Rock Posters to discuss your next outdoor advertising strategy.