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Monitoring Methods
Rideable Sydney Visualisation Project
02nd Apr 2013
A fun experiment to visualise how Sydney cyclists ride to work on a particular morning. This is part of a larger project to provide interactive maps and data to help understand the decision processes of cyclists when it comes to route selection for commuting.
Some cyclists aim for hills, others avoid them. Some cyclists like the shortest distance and others prefer prettier, less busy back roads to cycle to work on. Each cyclist is different and each cyclist has his or her own preferences when it comes to route selection.
A systematic review of the effectiveness of organisational travel plans: Improving the evidence base for transport decisions (International)
05th Feb 2013
This research reviewed the way organisational travel plans (OTPs) are assessed. OTPs aim to address health and sustainability goals in transport. Evidence for their effectiveness is lacking. The researchers recommend that OTP implementation needs to occur alongside robustly-designed epidemiologic studies. The research was published in the journal Transport Policy in January 2013.
A Distance-Based Method to Estimate Annual Pedestrian and Bicyclist Exposure in an Urban Environment (USA)
09th Jan 2013
In December 2012 the U.S. Federal Highway Administration released a report presenting methods that can be used to measure the safety of places, including intersections, road segments, and parking lots, when considering the effect on pedestrians and bicycle riders in an urban area. This methodology has the potential to fill a long-standing technical need for a commonly accepted measure of pedestrian and bicyclist exposure, thereby assisting in evaluating the effectiveness of pedestrian/bicyclist safety programs.
Sustainability assessment at the transportation planning level: Performance measures and indexes (USA)
02nd Jan 2013
This paper, published in the journal Transport Policy in January 2013, reviews methodologies that can be applied in sustainability assessment in transportation planning to shed light on the procedures being used to incorporate sustainability more effectively in the planning process. Using data from the Atlanta Metropolitan Region, the study identifies performance measures based on sustainability issues and regional goals and evaluates proposed transportation and land use alternatives.
Origin-destination flows for Melbourne journey to work by bicycle (Australia)
19th Dec 2012
In December 2012 CDM Research published a series of graphics showing the origin-destination flows for journeys to work by bicycle in Melbourne. The data is from the Australian Bureau of Statistics Census data from 2001, 2006 and 2011. The innovative method of data visualisation is information rich.
Traffic Monitoring Guide for Non-Motorised Traffic (USA)
18th Dec 2012
In December 2012 the US Federal Highway Administration published a new draft chapter of their Traffic Monitoring Guide. The new chapter provides basic guidance intended to improve the way non‐motorised traffic volumes are monitored. This edition of the Traffic Monitoring Guide will be the first to include information on monitoring pedestrians, bicyclists, and other non‐motorised road and trail users.
Cycling Participation and Rider Perceptions City of Port Phillip, Victoria (Australia)
13th Dec 2012
In 2012 Port Philip Council engaged the Australian Bicycle Council to undertake a Cycling Participation and Rider Perceptions survey of residents. This report outlines the survey findings and provides comparisons in participation with national and metropolitan Victoria data form the 2011 National Cycling Participation Survey.
Well Measured: Developing Indicators for Sustainable and Livable Transport Planning (North America)
04th Dec 2012
This report, published by the Victoria Transport Policy Institute in September 2012, provides guidance on the use of indicators for sustainable and livable transportation planning. It defines sustainability and livability, discusses sustainable development and sustainable transport concepts, and how sustainability indicators can be applied in transport evaluation and planning. It describes factors to consider when selecting sustainable transportation indicators, identifies examples of indicators and indicator sets, and provides recommendations for selecting sustainable transport indicators for use in a particular situation.
Baseline Evaluation of the New Zealand Cycle Trail (New Zealand)
29th Nov 2012
In November 2012 the New Zealand Cycle Trail announced that research was planned to evaluate the short and medium term outcomes of the Trail and to establish a sustainable framework for future evaluation. The project will be managed by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and a report is due in mid 2013.
Expanded Transportation Performance Measures to Supplement Level of Service (LOS) for Growth Management and Transportation Impact Analysis (USA)
29th Nov 2012
This report, prepared for the Florida Department of Transport and published in October 2012, identifies a range of performance measures to support Florida's moves towards a multi-modal transport system. It aims to provide new measures that can be used to assess development and land use proposals from a multi-modal perspective.
Measuring the Street: New Metrics for 21st Century Streets (USA)
06th Nov 2012
In October 2012 the New York City Department of Transport published Measuring the Street: New Metrics for 21st Century Streets. The report details the metrics NYCDOT uses to evaluate street projects and illustrates how measuring results can show progress toward safe, sustainable, liveable and economically competitive streets.
Cycling Quality Management and Evaluation in Europe (EU)
07th Sep 2012
This factsheet, published in March 2012 by the German Institute of Urban Affairs, examines how efforts to promote cycling and changes in travel behaviour can be measured so that the success of projects can be evaluated, and political arguments for the promotion of cycling can be backed by statistical data.
Using Smartphones to Collect Bicycle Travel Data in Texas (USA)
29th Aug 2012
In August 2012 the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University released a report evaluating a smartphone application that collected demographic information about people who use bicycles for the purposes of transportation.
Traffic Forecasts Ignoring Induced Demand (EU)
18th Jul 2012
This research report was published in the European Journal of Transport and Infrastructure Research in 2012. Researchers from the Institute of Transport Economics and a Danish university suggest that transport planners routinely ignore induced demand when considering new road and road expansion projects. Failing to fully account for induced demand causes public entities to overestimate the benefits of transportation projects and build more roads than is optimal from a financial and environmental perspective.
Walk Score Calculates City Bikeability (North America)
16th May 2012
In May 2012 Walk Score, a real estate rating service that goes by the slogan 'Drive Less, Live More', launched a new rating system 'Bike Score'. At launch the system ranked North American cities with populations over 200,000.
Generation of walking, cycling and public transport trips: pilot study (New Zealand)
19th Apr 2012
This research, undertaken for the NZ Transport Agency in 2010, investigated a method for collecting data relating to walk, cycle and public transport trips to land-use activities. A method needed to be developed that would require a short questionnaire to ensure higher sample rates, while also providing reliable and consistent results. This data could subsequently be used in calculating trip rates for walk, cycle and public transport trips, when combined with trip rate units such as floor area.
All things considered: developing a holistic and all encompassing assessment system for evaluating prospective active transport infrastructure (Australia)
10th Apr 2012
A robust, reliable and reusable process for establishing what active transport project should be funded, and when, is an important commodity. This paper, published in 2012 in the Proceedings of the Fourth Australian Cycling Conference, details a system to assess and prioritise active transport projects.
Practical Methods for Counting Bicycle and Pedestrian Use (USA)
09th Mar 2012
In January 2012 the Center for Transportation Studies at the University of Minnesota released a report exploring ways to distinguish bicycles from pedestrians when using automtatic traffic counting applications. They found that a vision-based system overcomes many of the shortcomings of existing technologies such as loop counters, buried pressure pads and infra-red counters and developed state-of-the-art algorithms for performing object classification to solve the problem of distinguishing bicyclists from pedestrians.
Pilot Models for Estimating Bicycle Intersection Volumes (US)
01st Feb 2012
This research report was published in the journal Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board in December 2011. Several simple models of bicycle intersection volumes were developed for Alameda County, California. The models showed that bicycle volumes tended to be higher at intersections surrounded by more commercial retail properties within 1/10 mi, closer to a major university, with a marked bicycle facility on at least one leg of the intersection, surrounded by less hilly terrain within 1/2 mi, or surrounded by a more connected roadway network.
Automated Bicycle Counts: Lessons from Boulder, Colorado (USA)
17th Feb 2011
This research paper, published in 2011, examines the accuracy of automated bicycle counters. This study focuses on bicycle counts collected by the City of Boulder, Colorado, since 1998, on multiuse paths with inductive loop detectors. This study found that inductive loop detectors can provide accurate measures of bicycle use on a pathway, but only when detectors are properly installed, calibrated, maintained, and free of external interference.
A real-time system for monitoring of cyclists and pedestrians (EU)
28th Sep 2010
Published in Image and Vision Computing in 2004 this paper describes a camera based automatic system that utilizes Kalman filtering in tracking and Learning Vector Quantization for classifying observations to pedestrians and cyclists. Both the requirements for such systems and the algorithms used are described. The tests performed show that the system achieves around 80–90% accuracy in counting and classification.
International Scan Summary Report on Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety and Mobility
24th Sep 2010
In May 2009, a team of 12 transportation professionals with expertise in bicycling and walking from the United States visited five countries in Europe to identify and assess effective approaches to improve pedestrian and bicyclist safety and mobility. This summary report provides an overview of the team’s findings and recommendations.
