Exciting News! 'People Flow' Tracking is Coming to VemCount

For years, one of the standard measures of a mall's performance was footfall. How many people came through the door? It's a very important number, but we always wanted to add more — like judging a restaurant by how many people look at the menu outside .

What we heard at Malls of the Future was a genuine shift in how operators are thinking. The conversation has moved from counting to understanding. How long did someone stay? Where did they go? Did they come back? These are the questions that actually tell you whether your space is working.

Dwell time isn't just a feel-good metric. For a mall, it's the difference between a visit that turns into one purchase and a visit that turns into three. For a retailer, it's the difference between someone glancing at a window display and someone who stays long enough to actually buy something. The industry knows this. What's exciting is that the tools to measure it properly are finally catching up.

People are finally talking about staying, not just arriving

The next chapter in people counting isn't actually about counting at all. For a long time, the only question that mattered in physical spaces was simple: how many people came in today?

At Cohera-Tech, we’ve spent the last twenty years helping organisations answer that exact question accurately, anonymously, and reliably. Our people counting software, powered by Vemco Group, is trusted in libraries, shopping centres, universities, galleries, and civic precincts across Australia and New Zealand. From Brisbane City Council's library network and the State Library of Victoria to the University of Melbourne's Smart Campus programme, we’ve built our reputation on solid numbers.

But that foundation is precisely what makes the next chapter so powerful. The conversation is shifting beyond basic footfall; operators are now asking who is visiting, for how long, and where did they go after that?

Illustrated cutaway of a retail store with shoppers browsing rails, showing the vemtrack Re-ID system mapping customer paths and feeding live dwell time and traffic data to an in-store dashboard.

Introducing Re-ID Technology

The next generation of people counting sensors incorporates a game-changing advancement: Re-ID (re-identification) technology.

Using artificial intelligence, Re-ID recognises and tracks the same person across multiple sensors and large-scale areas. When a person enters a space, the sensor assigns them an anonymous, unique ID - think of it like a temporary placeholder. As that person moves between zones, the sensor network seamlessly hands them off, stitching their journey together into proper foot traffic analytics across your entire site.

The result is a complete picture of customer behaviour. Instead of just knowing "500 people visited the centre today," you unlock insights like: "People who entered through the south entrance spent an average of 14 minutes in the food precinct before heading to fashion." That is a fundamentally different kind of information, and a far stronger basis for making critical business decisions.

Bright, open clothing boutique with coloured lines on the floor showing customer journey paths, illustrating how Cohera-Tech sensors map movement and dwell zones in a real retail space.

What This Means for Your Space

How will this technology reshape operations across different industries?

Retail Environments: This is the difference between knowing your store was busy and knowing exactly which zones converted dwell data into sales. It gives brands the exact insights they need to optimise store layouts, staffing, and visual merchandising.

Shopping Centres: Our clients have long understood that tenant mix is everything. But until now, cross-shopping data has relied heavily on individual store reporting. Mapping entire journeys turns retail hunches into hard evidence.

Universities & Smart Campuses: Understanding how a space is utilised, zone by zone, is now central to occupancy software and capacity management software decisions. You can easily see which study areas are oversubscribed at 2pm, or where to allocate resources.

Public Spaces & Cultural Institutions: Re-ID gives operators the concrete evidence base they need for funding submissions, exhibition reviews, and long-range event planning.

Furthermore, Re-ID technology sharpens the demographic picture. Age and gender insights become vastly more reliable when they are tied to a continuous journey rather than just a split-second doorway snapshot — a feature retailers have been waiting on for a long time.

And Importantly: It's Still 100% Anonymous

While the insights are deeper, privacy remains uncompromised. The assigned ID is strictly temporary, the data is entirely non-identifying, and the system remains fully GDPR compliant. No faces are recorded, no images are stored, and no personal data is ever collected. Just movement, mapped properly. People counting was always a useful number; now, it's becoming a useful map.

Close-up of the new Xovis PF people-counting sensor

Available Now

You don’t have to wait for the software update to start upgrading your infrastructure. Cohera-Tech has recently introduced the latest advancement in hardware to our product range: the cutting-edge Xovis PF-Series (featuring the new Xovis PF sensor).

As our premier Re-ID capable sensor, it is engineered with advanced edge-AI specifically designed for precision tracking in large-scale environments. By deploying this innovative hardware today, you will be fully prepared to activate VemCount's 'people flow' reporting the moment the software integration drops.

Curious What Your Space Could Tell You?

Whether you are an existing Cohera-Tech client looking to get more from your current people counting system, thinking about making the switch, or looking to upgrade to the new Xovis PF-Series with built-in Re-ID, we would love to walk you through what this evolution means for your environment. Get in touch with us today.