The UK retail sector is constantly changing and evolving. The increasing share of online sales and the development of out-of-town retail provision, in conjunction with the 2008–09 economic crisis, have disproportionately impacted high streets and physical retail negatively. Understanding and adapting to these changes is fundamental to the vitality, sustainability and prosperity of businesses, communities and the economy. However, there is a need for better information to support attempts to revitalise UK high streets and retail centres, and advances in sensor technology have made this possible. Footfall provides a commonly used heuristic of retail centre vitality and can be increasingly estimated in automated ways through sensing technology. However, footfall counts are influenced by a range of externalities such as aspects of retail centre function, morphology, connectivity and attractiveness. The key contribution of this paper is to demonstrate how footfall patterns are expressed within the varying context of different retail centre architypes providing both a useful tool for benchmarking and planning; but also making a theoretical contribution to the understanding of retail mobilities. This paper integrates a range of contextual data to develop a classification of footfall sensor locations; producing three representations of sensor micro-locations across Great Britain: chain and comparison retail micro-locations, business and independent micro-locations and value-orientated convenience retail micro-locations. These three groups display distinct daily and weekly footfall magnitudes and distributions, which are attributed to micro-locational differences in their morphology, connectivity and function.

英国零售业不断变化和发展。在线销售份额的增加和外地零售供应的发展，连同 2008-09 年的经济危机，对大街和实体零售产生了不成比例的负面影响。了解和适应这些变化对于企业、社区和经济的活力、可持续性和繁荣至关重要。然而，需要更好的信息来支持振兴英国商业街和零售中心的尝试，而传感器技术的进步使这成为可能。客流量提供了一种常用的零售中心活力启发式方法，并且可以通过传感技术以自动化方式越来越多地进行估计。然而，客流量受到一系列外部因素的影响，例如零售中心功能、形态、连通性和吸引力等方面。本文的主要贡献是展示了客流量模式是如何在不同零售中心架构的不同背景下表达的，为基准测试和规划提供了有用的工具；同时也为理解零售移动性做出了理论贡献。本文整合了一系列上下文数据来开发人流量传感器位置的分类；生成英国各地传感器微位置的三种表示形式：本文的主要贡献是展示了客流量模式是如何在不同零售中心架构的不同背景下表达的，为基准测试和规划提供了有用的工具；同时也为理解零售移动性做出了理论贡献。本文整合了一系列上下文数据来开发人流量传感器位置的分类；生成英国各地传感器微位置的三种表示形式：本文的主要贡献是展示了客流量模式是如何在不同零售中心架构的不同背景下表达的，为基准测试和规划提供了有用的工具；同时也为理解零售移动性做出了理论贡献。本文整合了一系列上下文数据来开发人流量传感器位置的分类；生成英国各地传感器微位置的三种表示形式：连锁和比较零售微店、商业和独立微店以及以价值为导向的便利零售微店。这三组显示出不同的每日和每周客流量大小和分布，这归因于其形态、连通性和功能的微位置差异。