Why Counting Bikes Matters

“Countless American cities have invested in networks of car counters, whose infamous ‘level of service’ data transportation leaders often use to justify dubious lane expansion projects on the busiest segments of their road networks.” But as Kea Wilson points out in Greater Greater Washington, many fewer cities have invested in resources for counting bicyclists. “That means that dynamic changes in ridership caused by easily fixable problems can go totally unnoticed until a resident makes a report — and even basic, critical metrics, like how likely pedestrians are to be killed in a fatal crash per miles traveled, aren’t analyzed at all.”

“In a recent paper for the National Institute for Transportation and Communities, researchers took a close look at the shockingly nascent science of bicycle counting and how cities could do a better job of measuring where its residents ride.” Unlike other research on the topic, the study combined a variety of data sources—physical counters, voluntary monitoring apps like Strava, bike share data, and cell phone data—to estimate bike counts in six cities. 

Its authors caution that no one method accurately represents the number of bikes circulating in a city, so investing in a combination of sources is the only way to attempt a more accurate count. Lead author Sirisha Kothuri “particularly recommends that policymakers go after any available grant money they can find to invest in automatic bicycle counters in addition to big data services, validate and maintain those static counters rigorously, and place them thoughtfully throughout the community, not just on the recreational trails where counters are most likely to record big numbers.”