CITY CYCLING

Where are there a lot of cyclists on the road? Where do things go smoothly – and where do cyclists have to wait too long at red lights? Which routes do they avoid and which do they prefer? With RiDE, which stands for “Radverkehr in Deutschland” (meaning as much as “bicycle traffic in Germany”), we present cycling data to help your municipality reliably answer these and many of the other questions important to cycling planning. The journeys that cyclists record using the CITY CYCLING app form the basis for this data that we make available to you via the RiDE portal.

And best of all: thanks to a grant from the Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport, German municipalities participating in CITY CYCLING can access a lot of this data entirely for free.

The use cases – helping to improve the cycling infrastructure

The cycling behaviour in your municipality is mapped in a total of six different use cases.

Thanks to funding from the Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport, a total of four of these use cases (heat map, traffic volumes, speeds and statistics dashboard) are being made available to German participating municipalities entirely free of charge with the data for the years 2022 to 2024. The source-destination relationship and waiting times use cases are being offered for a reduced rate. The data is expected to be available from the end of November 2022. We’ll provide further information about this in good time!

Heat map – a preliminary overview

The GPS points of journeys covered by bike are overlaid in the heat map. The more GPS points are concentrated on a surface, the brighter the points appear. This provides a preliminary overview of the distribution of cycling traffic in urban areas. The heat map also shows all journeys away from the established road network, hence it serves as an important additional tool in interpretation of the other use cases (e.g. traffic volumes).

Traffic volumes – how much is the network used?

The traffic volume map shows all journeys completed by bike during the CITY CYCLING campaign in relation to the traffic network. The GPS trajectories of the individual journeys are projected onto the traffic network (segments of the OpenStreetMap network graph) and all crossings in a network segment are accumulated.

Speeds – how fast do cyclists travel?

The speed map shows the average speeds travelled by cyclists on the individual route sections. The direction of travel on the network segments is also evaluated.

Statistics dashboard – what is the demographic composition of the data for my municipality?

The statistics dashboard provides insights into the sample demographics (gender and age distribution) as well as information on the journeys recorded (distance distribution, etc.). Allowing the quality of the data set to be verified.

Source-destination relationships – how many cyclists are on the move, when and from where to where?

Mapping of what is known as the source and destination traffic is based on hexagonal traffic cells with a selectable cell diameter resolution of up to approx. 130 metres.

In future, we plan to upload your municipality-specific traffic cells as shape files and to provide them aggregated with our source-destination dataset in the finest cell resolution. You can then use this in our interactive mapping and your chosen geographic information system (GIS).

Waiting times – where do cyclists have to wait and for how long?

This innovative use case determines the waiting times at each junction and awards a quality rating from A to F according to the definitions provided in the German technical manual for the design of road traffic facilities (Handbuch für die Bemessung von Straßenverkehrsanlagen, HBS). A detailed analysis is additionally provided of the waiting times at all possible waiting points at a junction. In addition, the turning behaviour during all journeys is mapped together with the resulting waiting times. Allowing you to see where the problems lie at a node.

How to gain and view new insights

1. Participate in CITY CYCLING as a municipality!

Demonstrate your commitment to the mobility transition and invite local citizens to participate in CITY CYCLING. Municipalities need to register online at city-cycling.org/register.

2. Promote the CITY CYCLING app in your municipality!

Using the CITY CYCLING app to record routes is the easiest way for cyclists to add kilometres to their cycle log during the local campaign. This data also forms the basis for RiDE – so for your future traffic planning. Android and iOS versions of the CITY CYCLING app are available for download.

Use the RiDE portal!

Use the RiDE data and its graphs to precisely tailor development of the cycling infrastructure in your municipality. Click here to access the client portal or log into the RiDE portal directly.

Interested?

For more information and contact details, see www.radverkehr-in-deutschland.de.

RiDE – Bicycle traffic in Germany

Free cycling data for German participating municipalities