Street cred: How data insights are strengthening London business districts

London’s Lower Marsh Market, next door to busy Waterloo station, was once one of the U.K.’s longest street markets and, according to one 1872 account, home to “a numerous assembly of costermongers, dealers in fish, rabbits, and pork, sellers of cheap hosiery, pottery, hardware, trinkets and toys.”

That it was open on Sunday mornings raised the consternation of local church elders, who asked police to intervene. At 9 a.m. the following Sunday, nuisance inspectors arrived to shut down the market, but stall owners said that if they closed they would “be compelled to throw themselves upon the parish,” since their strongest sales all week came on Sunday mornings.

The church agreed to a compromise, allowing the market to open on Sundays so long as the stalls shut by 10:30 a.m., before services.

Data-driven decision-making, Victorian style.

Today at Lower Marsh Market, you can still find trinkets and toys, though the food has certainly changed — choose from bibimbap, samosas, lamb kebabs, jerk chicken and more. And once again, the market faces a decision about its future. Currently open only Mondays through Fridays, it is considering opening on Saturdays, perhaps with a different mix of vendors.

This time, they have more than the words of the costermongers to guide them.

Policymakers worldwide are now embracing the power of data-backed decision-making, from building a case for a particular investment or policy to prioritizing services based on a better understanding of demographics and needs. For example, when New York City Mayor Eric Adams made Fifth Avenue vehicle-free for the holiday season in 2022, an analysis by Mastercard found that it resulted in $3 million in additional spending.

In St. Louis, a new emergency response program aimed at defusing mental health crises saved the city an estimated $2.2 million in 2021. A 2021 study by McKinsey Global Institute found that data and analytics could create about $1.2 trillion a year in value across the public and social sectors.

We Are Waterloo, the organization that administers the Lower Marsh Market, is benefiting from a data partnership that dates to the early months of the pandemic. That’s when the Greater London Authority reached out to Mastercard to assess the impact of COVID-19 on retail spending and support recovery planning.

Fast-forward four years: The GLA thought its partner organizations and agencies — borough councils, business improvement districts, and London & Partners among them — could benefit from deeper insights as the city grappled with the reduction of workers in the central business districts due to the growth of hybrid schedules, including changes in commuting patterns and where and when people are eating and drinking.

The pandemic accelerated existing challenges facing British high streets, says Craig Campbell, the manager of the data service — a result of generational shifts and the rise of e-commerce.

Working with Mastercard and others, the GLA created a hub called the London High Streets Data Service, which curates third-party data and makes it accessible, usable and understandable for organizations that might not have the resources to do it on their own. Initially, 20 local authorities joined the partnership; now 35 organizations subscribe to the data service.

In addition to aggregated and anonymized spending data, the service pulls in footfall data, vacancy rates and even site-specific information, like opening and closing hours. Campbell’s team synthesizes the information into a dashboard for each high street, with simple and actionable insights for its local authorities.

One of the most impactful elements of the service is Mastercard’s ability to provide anonymized and aggregated local spending patterns, including intraday data, which identifies consumption in three-hour chunks. This can help local authorities considering significant changes to determine whether they might need more security, for example, or if they should petition for increased transit service.

“By breaking up this data into that level of granularity, we help answer those questions,” says Simon Forbes, Mastercard’s president for U.K. and Ireland. “That supports smarter, more informed policies and fosters more transparency and trust in communities.”

Like many large cities, London in recent years has been investing in its nightlife and putting in place policies for a safe, sustainable nighttime economy. To support this vision, London’s 24-hour city team worked with Campbell to access data on special events designed to enliven high streets at night. While many high streets go dormant after 6 p.m., the data showed that these events drew visitors and spurred spending at local businesses. This contributed to decisions to make permanent infrastructure changes to those areas, such as additional streetlights to increase safety and outdoor power points to enable future events.

In the case of We Are Waterloo, these insights can also demonstrate the need for financial and logistical support for special events, such as outdoor movie screenings or street parties, that help make Waterloo a cultural destination, says Zan Haq, the marketing and projects officer for We Are Waterloo. “In the past, we had no tangible way to justify the costs to the borough council, our executive board, even some of our businesses. The main question asked is ‘What is the benefit of going to all this trouble?’”

An analysis of the anonymized and aggregated spending data around the day and time of the event, compared with the average spend, showed an increase of at least 25% to as much as 81% in the Lower Marsh area, depending on the event, and a boost of 13% to 29% in Waterloo, he says.

These decisions are made with the help of public datasets, such as crime statistics and noise complaints, as well as more traditional feedback from residents, property owners, business owners, workers and visitors, Campbell says. “We find the results are most powerful when the quantitative, bird’s-eye view works alongside the qualitative perspectives to shape a consensus of what’s happening on the ground, helping communities come together to get the best outcome.”