Increased bicycle traffic between 2024 and 2025
+5.6% is the increase recorded on European cycle routes between January - August 2024 and the same period in 2025.
This increase is measured thanks to the network of automatic counters we supply to European local authorities. Once a year, at the Federation of European Cyclists' EuroVelo conference, we draw up an assessment of the season on European routes.
After a plateau last year, the results for 2025 show a further increase in bicycle traffic on EuroVelo routes. This increase can certainly be explained by several converging factors, both structural and social, and linked to current climatic and tourism trends.
There is an underlying trend towards more environmentally-friendly forms of travel, as well as the development of electrically-assisted bicycles, making cycle tourism accessible to a much wider public.
Investments in cycling infrastructure (new lanes, improved safety, EuroVelo networks, etc.) are making cycling easier and more attractive.
The spring of 2025 was particularly dry and sunny, boosting cycling during the season.
A uniform increase in cycling in all environments
Thanks to the efforts of public authorities across Europe to install and maintain bicycle counters, a total of 649 sites were analyzed for this year's edition (540 last year).
The 649 sites studied were classified by type: rural, urban or peri-urban, in order to compare their respective trends. It is interesting to note that thesample of meters is equally distributed across the three environments: urban, suburban and rural. This increase in practice is found in all the types of environment analyzed: peri-urban, urban and rural.
Several routes are doing well, notably the Central European EuroVelo (EV4)
The EuroVelo 4, EuroVelo 3 and EuroVelo 15 routes record even greater traffic growth between 2024 and 2025 than the average figures.
EuroVelo 4 is the European route that crosses the central part of Europe from France to Ukraine. The route as a whole will record growth of 26% between 2024 and 2025.
Methodology
The study is based on an analysis of data from 649 representative counting sites, spread across the entire EuroVelo European network.
This represents a significant increase in the sample compared with previous analyses, which were based on 2019 as the reference year. The sample still does not cover the entire EuroVelo network, but improves the accuracy of the analysis by including more countries (e.g. Austria, Finland, Hungary, Poland, Switzerland, the UK, etc.).
The distinction between "urban", "peri-urban" and "rural" is made using the location of each count site in combination with information on the LUA geographical unit and the degree of urbanization (DEGURBA).
The analysis was carried out for the period January to August 2025, compared with the same period in 2024.
Would you like to find out more about the results, or obtain information about studies we can offer?
