People counting for local government

People counting for libraries and council facilities

People counting for councils and libraries gives a consistent visitor number for every facility, which is what annual reports, service reviews and opening-hours decisions rely on. CountIQ counts visitors with compatible Axis cameras and sends scheduled reports to the people who need them.

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CountIQ scheduled reports screen showing automated email reporting setup, report previews and traffic summary charts

Why councils count visitors

Visitor numbers are a reporting requirement

Libraries and community facilities report visits to council and to funding bodies. Automatic counts replace clicker tallies and estimates.

Opening hours and staffing

Hourly counts show when each branch is used, which is the evidence for changing opening hours or moving staff between branches.

Showing what a facility delivers

Visitor trends before and after a refurbishment or a new program show whether it changed how the community uses the building.

What to measure

The same counts answer questions from branch staff, managers and councillors.

Metric	What it tells you	Decision it supports
Visits per day, month and year	The figure annual reporting asks for	Funding returns and annual reports
Visits by hour	When the facility is used	Opening hours and rosters
Branch comparison	Which facilities are growing or declining	Service reviews and capital works
Program and event days	The uplift a program brings	Program planning
Live occupancy	How many people are in the building	Capacity and safety

How CountIQ counts

Step 1
Count at the entrance
Compatible Axis cameras count people crossing configured entrance and exit lines. Detection and counting run on the camera.
Step 2
Bring every site together
Count data is sent to CountIQ in the cloud, where dashboards show activity and occupancy by site and zone.
Step 3
Alert and report
Set occupancy thresholds, receive alerts and schedule reports so the right people get the numbers without asking.

Read more about how people counting systems work or see the CountIQ people counting software in detail. Planning a purchase? See people counting pricing, Axis camera compatibility and privacy.

How council teams use it

The annual return

Pull a year of visits for every branch from one dashboard instead of collecting figures from each site.

An opening-hours review

Compare visits by hour across branches to see where extended hours would be used and where they would not.

Reports that send themselves

Scheduled reports go to branch managers and facility coordinators daily, weekly or monthly.

What to check before you start

A door count is visits, not unique visitors. Someone who comes twice in a day is counted twice. Report it as visits.
Every public entrance needs to be counted, including side and accessible entrances.
Cameras need to be compatible Axis models running AXIS People Counter or AXIS Object Analytics. We check your existing cameras and entrance coverage before you commit.
Cover people counting in your privacy management plan and facility signage, as you would for the cameras themselves.

Common questions

How do libraries count visitors?

Libraries count visitors with a counter at each entrance. Camera-based counters use on-camera analytics to count people crossing a line in each direction, and the entries are reported as visits by hour, day, month and year.

Is a door count the same as unique visitors?

No. A door count records visits. A person who visits twice in a day is counted twice. Most library and facility reporting asks for visits, so check the definition your funding body uses.

Can reports be sent automatically to branch managers?

Yes. CountIQ schedules reports so the people who need the figures receive them without anyone requesting or compiling them.

Can we use the security cameras we already have?

If they are compatible Axis cameras positioned to see the entrance, CountIQ can use them for counting without separate people counter sensors. We check camera models, analytics and entrance coverage before you start.