COUNTING THE CROWD: PEOPLE COUNTING AND FLOW CONTROL AT PADDY'S MARKETS, SYDNEY
Few retail environments in Australia are as busy — or as unpredictable — as Paddy’s Markets. Hundreds of stalls, several public entrances, a mix of locals, tourists and weekend day-trippers, and foot traffic that can swing dramatically between a quiet Thursday and a long weekend. Managing that kind of movement by eye alone is close to impossible.
JJ Secuwatch worked on a people counting and flow control deployment at Paddy’s Markets in Sydney, using Hikvision people counting technology to give management accurate, real-time visibility of who was coming in, where they were going, and how full the venue was at any moment.
Here’s how that kind of system works, and why it matters for any high-traffic venue.
The challenge: big venue, many doors, no data
Traditional CCTV tells you what happened. It doesn’t tell you how many people walked through the north entrance between 11am and midday, or which entry point carries twice the load of the others.
For a market operator, that gap creates some very practical problems:
- Occupancy management. Knowing the current headcount inside the venue, not an estimate.
- Uneven entry loads. Some doors are always busier. Without data, staff get allocated evenly instead of where they’re actually needed.
- Stallholder and leasing conversations. Traffic data is the difference between “that area feels quiet” and a number you can put in front of a tenant.
- Peak planning. Cleaning, security rostering and event scheduling all improve when you know your real hourly patterns instead of your assumed ones.
A market is also harder than a standard retail store. Entrances are wide, people move in groups, and trolleys, prams and bags all confuse basic counting methods. Anything based on a simple beam sensor or single-lens motion detection loses accuracy quickly in that environment.
The solution: stereo counting plus flow control at the door
The deployment combined three layers.
1. Dual-lens people counting cameras at entry and exit points. Hikvision’s people counting cameras use 3D binocular stereo vision, which measures depth rather than just movement. That’s what makes them reliable in a market setting — the system distinguishes an adult from a child from a trolley, and separates people walking side by side in a group. Counting accuracy holds up under exactly the conditions that break simpler systems.
2. Flow control terminals for live occupancy. Screens positioned at entrances display current occupancy against the venue’s set threshold, with a clear enter / please wait indication. Staff aren’t left guessing, and visitors self-regulate at the door rather than being turned around inside.
3. Central analytics and reporting. All counting data feeds into a central platform, giving management live dashboards and historical reporting — by entrance, by hour, by day, by comparison period. Reports can be scheduled and shared internally without anyone manually pulling numbers.
Underneath all of it sits the network. People counting is only as reliable as the infrastructure carrying it, which is why we treat the switching, cabling and PoE design as part of the solution rather than an afterthought.
Where this applies beyond markets
The same approach works anywhere movement and capacity matter: shopping centres, transport hubs, sporting and entertainment venues, showrooms, galleries and public buildings. JJ Secuwatch has delivered people counting and crowd control systems for major national operators, including IKEA Australia across all branches, alongside surveillance and analytics projects for shopping centres, government facilities, schools, stadiums and airports.
The technology is mature. What determines whether a deployment succeeds is the design work around it — mounting heights, entrance geometry, lighting, network capacity, and how the reporting is actually going to be used once it’s live.
