At the beginning of the year, the Tallinn Strategic Management Office began measuring the frequency of attendance to Old Town with motion sensors. In the first five months, the sensors measured approximately 10 million visits to Old Town.
Of all the movement that was observed through the gates, 51% were entries and 49% exits. People go to Old Town the most on Saturdays and most visits were made in the afternoon between 15:00-17:00. The first five months of data indicate that the busiest location in Old Town is the Viru Gate (Viru Street 27), where over a fifth (21%) of the measured traffic occurred (a total of 2.14 million entries and exits). Nunne (13% of traffic) and Vana-Viru (10% of traffic) are in second and third place for entries and exits.
Entering Old Town is most common via Viru 27 (18% of all entries in the first five months), the Great Coastal Gate (15%) and Vana-Viru Street (12%). The Viru Gate at Viru 27 also has the highest number of exits (24%). Even though overall, there is a more or less even split between people who enter and exit at the gates, percentages differ at some of them. For example, entries constitute 85% of movement via the Great Coastal Gate. The percentage of people entering Old Town is also significantly higher than the percentage of people exiting at the Väike-Karja Gate (67%), while the percentage of exits is higher than the percentage entries at the Suur-Karja Gate (67%).
In regard to weekdays, the busiest day in the first five months was Saturday, when 17% of all visits to Old Town were made. The most common time to visit Old Town is during the day (15:00-17:00). On weekdays most traffic occurs between 08:00-17:00 and on weekends from 11:00-20:00.
More information about movement through the various gates is available on the
Old Town foot traffic workspace. It gives a brief overview regarding how many visits are taken to Old Town – on which days, at what times, and via which gates people enter or exit Old Town. The information is currently only in Estonian.