Thermal-sensing cameras will be installed in three locations in downtown Victoria over the Christmas season to track pedestrian movements.

The pilot project is being run by the Downtown Victoria Business Association, which hopes to augment traffic-pattern information already gathered by the city, general manager Ken Kelly said Tuesday. The cameras will be installed at the end of this month and be in place for about three months, he said.

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“We will have them in place to be able to do some baseline data just before Christmas, during Christmas and after Christmas,” Kelly said.

“We’ll monitor these numbers to see how they are stacking up and then we can start utilizing them.”

If the images provide the kind of information the DVBA wants, Kelly said the organization with partner with the city to buy more cameras for a more comprehensive study of the downtown.

The public should have no concerns about personal security because the cameras do not record individual images or faces, he said. In fact, the cameras might be be better described as thermal sensors, Kelly said.

“No one is identifiable. This is strictly taking something that has been done for literally generations through a manual process by people standing at street corners at strategic times of the year counting people,” he said.

Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin welcomed the initiative, saying the information gathered will help “sell the downtown” and he had no concern with the equipment being used.

“It’s great that the DVBA is doing this,” he said. “Knowing that 30,000 people, for example, go into the Bay Centre each week is great but how many people are actually walking by. That’s the information that helps sell your downtown.”

Kelly said the more information that can be gathered about pedestrian movements in the downtown the better.

“We’ll be able to provide really good information to somebody who is perhaps looking at investing in a particular block or particular area who wants to know what the pedestrian flow is,” he said.

The DVBA will also be able to better analyze which events draw people to which parts of the downtown.

Initially, the cameras will be installed in the 500 block of Johnson Street, the 1100 block of Government Street and the 700 block of Fort Street.

“At the present, the city provides traffic counts every five years at particular intersections within the downtown,” Kelly said. “It’s a very competitive market out there and we want to be able to create information which is more timely.”

If the pilot is successful, the DVBA hopes it can work with the city to expand the project.

“The objective is never to blanket the downtown but to have enough of these cameras and to have them mobile enough that we can take them to different locations and do the metrics on any location.”

The business association is working with French-based Eco-Counter on the project, Kelly said. The cameras cost about $4,500 each, plus a $500 annual fee.

“We will be the first consumers [in Canada] to employ this particular product,” he said.

According to its website, Eco-Counter develops sensors to track and count pedestrian and cycling movements in urban areas. The company has installed more than 7,000 counters in 40 countries since its inception in 1998.

bcleverley@timescolonist.com