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Springboard footfall: the 8 best MRI OnLocation alternatives (2026)
Huq is our product. Here's how we compared everyone, including us.
Springboard footfall data now comes from MRI Software. MRI announced it had acquired Springboard on 3 October 2022, and now sells footfall counting as MRI OnLocation Footfall Analytics. Its product page still links to the Springboard Analyser login, and UK press now credits the monthly footfall figures to MRI Software.
MRI's method is counting: AI software on existing camera networks measures passing and converted footfall at fixed points. MRI cites 218m+ footfalls a week across 14,300+ counting points. Counts are precise where installed. They can't measure a competitor's site, a vacant unit or a town without equipment.
We compared eight UK alternatives and complements, from network data and on-site counts to address-level footfall platforms and occupancy data. At your own doors, counters remain the most precise option.
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Quick answer
For branded retail chains, retail commercial property, and investors and private equity, Huq measures footfall at any UK address with no hardware. BT Active Intelligence and O2 Motion suit district trends, and Ipsos counts candidate sites on the ground.
Springboard footfall alternatives compared
Counters, network data, on-site counts and footfall platforms side by side.
In this guide
How we evaluated
- Where it measures: only installed points, or any address including competitors and vacant units.
- What it measures: counts and conversion, or also catchment, dwell time and cross-visitation.
- Freshness: continuous, weekly, monthly or one-off counts.
- Effort: hardware to install and maintain, staff counts, or nothing at all.
- Benchmarks: how a place compares with regional and national trends.
The best Springboard and MRI OnLocation alternatives in the UK
1. Huq: best for branded retail chains, retail commercial property, and investors and private equity
Huq is a location intelligence platform built to give the broadest set of location data, in the most markets (35), in one place. Unlike counters, it needs no cameras, sensors or installation, so it can measure any UK address: your own stores, a competitor's site, a vacant unit, a retail park or a whole high street. That makes it a complement to Springboard-style counts as much as a replacement.
In one platform you get footfall by week, month and year (totals, average daily footfall, trends, period-on-period change, and visiting vs passing traffic), residents and visitors, catchment by postcode with drive-time and travel-time analysis, demographics and profiling (age, gender, purchasing power), visit frequency, dwell time, dayparts, cross-visitation between up to 10 location pairs, international visitation, footfall density, transportation mode, brand and industry analysis, and geo-spend data for UK locations via Experian. Commercial teams use the Explore map, White Space Analysis and Projects for monitoring many sites. Analysts get CSV or Excel exports, monthly PDF location reports, and data feeds as Parquet and CSV files into Amazon S3 or Google Cloud Storage.
Data refreshes weekly. Huq manually validates more than 1,000 locations in each of its 35 markets twice a year, and publishes an 18.7% median error in Great Britain against landlord-reported footfall. Monthly PDF reports compare each location's trends with regional and national benchmarks, which covers much of what landlords and BIDs use published counter benchmarks for.
Huq's clients range from the global insights, research and location intelligence teams at Nike, Adidas, JD Sports and Samsung to retail teams with five stores that want to expand and get an edge on their market. Local governments also use it to check whether economic development and regeneration work is paying off.
Pros
- Used by global brands such as Nike, Adidas, JD Sports and Samsung, and by retailers with a handful of stores
- Any UK address, including competitors and vacant units
- Catchment, dwell time and cross-visitation, not only counts
- Demographics and Experian geo-spend for UK locations
- Weekly data with an 18.7% median error in Great Britain
Cons
- Not an entrance counter, so it doesn't measure in-store conversion
- No API; data comes as exports and file feeds
- Shows weekly patterns rather than minute-by-minute counts
2. BT Active Intelligence: best for UK town-centre and event footfall from network data
BT Active Intelligence is BT Business's mobility insight service, built on aggregated, anonymised data from more than 24 million devices on the EE network and scaled to the UK population. It offers Location insights (footfall), Journey insights, Origin destination insights and Audience insights.
For Springboard users, the main difference is that BT needs no hardware: it covers places across the UK, not only where cameras are installed, and adds where people travel from. Data is aggregated across time, geography, age and gender, and customers use an on-demand portal or ask BT for specific outputs. BT lists councils, retailers, real estate planners and stadium operators among its users. It suits town-centre and event questions. It won't give you entrance-level conversion for a single store.
BT says its location accuracy is closer to GPS than to traditional mobile network data, and its footfall and journey insights include historic trends. Network Rail is a named user. For a BID that has counters on two streets, BT can show what happens on the streets in between.
Pros
- No hardware to install
- Origin–destination and journey data
- Age and gender breakdowns
Cons
- Area-level, not entrance-level counts
- UK only
3. O2 Motion (Virgin Media O2 Business): best for councils and BIDs tracking district movement
O2 Motion is Virgin Media O2 Business's anonymised, aggregated mobile network data service. It relies on connection data between devices and phone masts, and does not collect GPS data. The ONS chose VMO2 Business as its strategic mobility data partner in 2024, with O2 Motion data refreshed weekly on the ONS platform.
Virgin Media O2 has used it to report high street footfall across central London districts such as Soho, Oxford Circus and Mayfair, and CACI has combined it with profiling to measure footfall volume and dwell time. For a council or BID that relies on a few counters, O2 Motion can fill in the districts in between. Mast-based data describes areas rather than doorways, so it isn't a like-for-like swap for a counter at a shopping centre entrance.
O2 Motion focuses on how people travel, when they make journeys and which areas they visit. That makes it useful for understanding why footfall at a counter rises or falls: more people arriving from a particular area, or a shift in travel times, can explain movements that a count alone can't.
Pros
- No hardware needed
- Weekly refresh, used by the ONS
- Good district and journey coverage
Cons
- Area-level, not entrance-level
- UK only
4. Ipsos Location Planning: best for on-site footfall counts for site decisions
Ipsos Location Planning counts footfall with a dedicated app that records visitor counts and demographic data at a specific site. Clients get reports and data extracts through an online portal.
Ipsos describes three main uses: comparing candidate high street, retail park and shopping centre sites with control stores to estimate sales potential, judging sites for relocations and lease reviews, and linking footfall to transactions to study store conversion. One health and beauty retailer ran more than 450 counts to assess new sites. Like Springboard, it is direct counting, but staff go to the site rather than hardware staying there. That suits a short list of candidate sites. It doesn't give the continuous trends a permanent counter or a data platform provides.
Ipsos also gives examples of an international retailer opening grocery convenience stores across Greater London, and a global tech and retail brand running more than 400 counts in a year. If you want a one-off reading at a unit you're about to lease, it is a straightforward choice.
Pros
- Counts any site, including ones you don't own
- Records visitor demographics during counts
- Built for acquisitions and lease reviews
Cons
- Snapshots on chosen days
- Cost and time grow with each new site
5. Geolytix Small Area Footfall: best for fine-grained footfall estimates across UK retail places
Geolytix is a UK location planning consultancy and data company with 77 staff. Its Small Area Footfall product blends mobility data with survey data and ground truthing to estimate average daily footfall at 20m hex level, for more than 20,000 UK Retail Places.
That fine grid lets you compare footfall between streets and parts of a centre, something a single counter can't do. Geolytix sells it with its MAPP mapping tool and consultancy for sales forecasting and network strategy, and its clients include Tesco, Sainsbury's, Co-op, Costa and Savills. The product page doesn't state how often the data updates or how it's delivered, so check both if you're replacing weekly counter reports. It suits planners modelling sites more than centre managers tracking this week's trade.
Geolytix also sells cross-shopping data, UK banking data and a retail places dataset, so its footfall estimates can be combined with spend and competitor context. Named clients include Asda, Co-op, M&S, Costa and Savills. It works best inside a wider Geolytix project rather than as a straight counter swap.
Pros
- Street-level detail across UK retail places
- Blends several sources with ground truthing
- Backed by forecasting consultancy
Cons
- Update frequency isn't published
- Estimates rather than counts
6. CACI footfall data: best for footfall with Acorn profiling and consultancy
CACI is a London data and consultancy company best known for Acorn. It also sells footfall data, which it describes as Acorn-coded data derived from mobile phones, available for major markets around the world.
CACI's footfall data covers movement at a location by time of day, day of week and season, plus who is there and competitor catchments, and can be combined with spend and market research data. It is sold off the shelf for commonly used locations or as bespoke processing for the sites you choose. For Springboard users, the attraction is profiling: you see the Acorn types behind the footfall, not just the count. CACI doesn't publish file formats or refresh frequency on the page, so ask before you switch.
CACI also partnered with O2 Motion in 2021 on a footfall offer measuring volume and dwell time, and its Retail Footprint model estimates each centre's spend potential. A landlord can therefore get footfall, visitor profiles and modelled spend from one supplier, as data, InSite software or consultancy.
Pros
- Footfall with Acorn profiles of visitors
- Competitor catchments included
- Bespoke processing for chosen sites
Cons
- Refresh frequency isn't published
- Bespoke locations need custom processing
7. MyTraffic SmartMonitor: best for shopping centre owners comparing centres
MyTraffic is a French location intelligence company that covers the UK among 18 countries. Its SmartMonitor product helps a centre track its own health and its competitors, analyse its catchment and measure campaigns. Its UK shopping centre dashboard covers more than 300 UK centres, and the page also cites more than 550.
The dashboard shows monthly visits, attractiveness, main competitors and footfall compared with competitors, so a landlord can benchmark a centre without installing anything. MyTraffic's API page lists monthly updated data, and the wider product now runs through Gini, an AI assistant, after MyTraffic bought Geoblink in 2024. It suits centre owners who want competitor context alongside their own counters. It is less suited to a high street or BID needing weekly figures.
The dashboard also flags each centre's main competitors, which counters can't show because they only see their own doors. MyTraffic covers the UK among 18 countries, which may suit owners with centres in France or Spain too. Check the refresh schedule against your reporting cycle.
Pros
- Competitor benchmarks for UK centres
- No hardware needed
- 18-country coverage for international owners
Cons
- Monthly data
- Refresh schedule for the dashboard isn't stated
8. Local Data Company (Green Street): best for adding occupancy and vacancy context to footfall
Local Data Company is a London-based provider of data on Great Britain's retail and leisure market, owned by Green Street since November 2023. Its field researchers visit over 70,000 premises a month, capturing more than 20 data fields per location, including a photo.
LDC doesn't count people. It tracks occupancy, vacancy, openings and closures across high streets, shopping centres and retail parks, and its LocalDataOnline tool adds mapping and KPIs. Many Springboard users are landlords, BIDs and councils, and for them LDC explains why footfall moves: a new anchor, a run of closures, a change in retail mix. Use it alongside a footfall source, not instead of one.
LDC has been tracking retail places for many years, and its online platform helps clients follow openings and closures, brand footprints and portfolio health. For high street teams reporting Springboard-style footfall, LDC's vacancy rate is often the second chart in the same board pack.
Pros
- Field-verified occupancy data
- Openings and closures history
- Covers all types of UK retail place
Cons
- No footfall data
- Great Britain only
How to choose a Springboard alternative
Do you need conversion at your own doors?
If you need exact entrance counts and store conversion, a counter such as MRI's remains the right tool. Add a footfall platform for everything beyond your doors.
Do you need sites you don't own?
Competitors' stores, vacant units and new towns can't host your counters. Network or address-level footfall data covers them.
Do you need to know where visitors come from?
Counts show volume. Catchment and cross-visitation show where visitors live and where else they go, which helps leasing and marketing.
How many places will you track?
Counters scale with hardware. Data platforms scale with a list of addresses, which matters across a large portfolio or a whole town.
Frequently asked questions
What happened to Springboard footfall?
MRI Software, a US real estate software company, announced it had acquired Springboard in October 2022. Springboard was founded in 2002 and had 6,637 counting points at the time. The product is now MRI OnLocation Footfall Analytics, and UK press credits the monthly footfall figures to MRI Software.
Who provides UK footfall benchmarking data?
MRI Software (formerly Springboard) publishes free daily benchmarks from its counters. BT Active Intelligence and O2 Motion sell network-based footfall, and Huq offers footfall at any UK address, with monthly reports comparing each location's trends against regional and national benchmarks.
How do you calculate footfall?
Footfall is the number of people visiting or passing a place in a period. Counters and cameras count people at entrances, staff can count by hand for set periods, and data providers estimate visits for whole areas. Retailers then divide transactions by footfall to get conversion.
Where can I find free footfall data?
MRI Software publishes free daily footfall benchmarks, and UK press reports its monthly figures. Councils and BIDs sometimes publish their own counts. For a specific site, Huq offers a free analysis of footfall, catchment and visitor behaviour for any UK address.
How often is Huq's footfall data updated, and what does it cover?
Huq's data refreshes weekly and covers any address in the UK: high streets, shopping centres, retail parks, competitors' stores and vacant units. Huq manually validates more than 1,000 locations in each of its 35 markets twice a year, with an 18.7% median error in Great Britain.
Can I get a free analysis from Huq?
Yes. Share a shopping centre, high street or a few stores, and Huq will prepare a free analysis of footfall trends, catchment and visitor behaviour. If you already run counters, it's a good way to see what Huq adds beyond your entrances.
Questions? Talk to us
Book a demoSources
- Huq
- MRI OnLocation Footfall Analytics
- MRI Software acquires Springboard
- FashionNetwork: Springboard acquired by MRI
- FashionUnited: UK footfall, September 2026
- BT Active Intelligence
- Virgin Media O2: O2 Motion footfall
- ISPreview: ONS picks Virgin Media O2 Business
- The Industry: CACI and O2 Motion
- Ipsos Location Planning
- Geolytix
- Geolytix: Small Area Footfall
- CACI: footfall data
- CACI: Retail Footprint
- CACI: location intelligence
- MyTraffic
- MyTraffic: SmartMonitor
- tech.eu: MyTraffic acquires Geoblink
- MyTraffic: UK shopping centres dashboard
- MyTraffic: API traffic data
- Local Data Company
- Business Wire: Green Street acquires LDC
About Huq
Huq is a location intelligence company. We turn anonymised mobile location data into footfall, catchment and visitor insight for any place, so retailers, property owners and local authorities can make decisions on evidence.
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