In Trondheim’s historic Bakklandet district, tensions between users raised a practical question: how to improve usage conflicts with effective measures? By measuring cycling speeds with CITIX-AI Evo, the city gained evidence to inform signage decisions and guide a street redesign aimed at better accommodating both groups.
In Norway, anyone cycling (or riding an e-scooter) where pedestrians are present must slow to a "walking pace" when passing them, defined by law as a speed not exceeding 6 km/h. This applies on sidewalks (where cycling and scooters are allowed in Norway), and also in areas designated by signage as "share space", in Norwegian "gatetun" (living streets, or home zones).
In Bakklandet, a historic district of Trondheim, a gatetun sign had been standing for many years. When the 6 km/h rule formally came into force in 2022, it gave residents a sense of entitlement against cyclists, who naturally rode faster, feeding a recurring local conflict. But as Bakklandet sits on Trondheim's main cycling network, the sign was effectively asking through-cyclists to ride slower than the street was ever designed for.
To clarify and untangle this local conflict, a CITIX-AI Evo speed-measurement device was installed in this street to record how fast cyclists travelled.
The data confirmed what one already suspected: it is very difficult to comply by the 6 km/h rule on a bike without falling off. Cyclists on the street very rarely rode at or below the limit. The same pattern showed up on another gatetun-marked street on the main cycling network: most cyclists kept to the asphalt in the middle of the road and stayed well above 6 km/h, especially for down-hill directions.
A bare 5% of total traffic is below the 6km/h threshold.
When Bakklandet's streets came up for a redesign, the new signage had to go through an approval round. Citing the street’s place on the main cycling network and the fact that riding below 6 km/h is unrealistic (as proven with data!), the public road administration did not allow the municipality to reinstate the gatetun sign in Bakklandet. It is no longer there!
Rather than an unrealistic expectation, usage data and behaviors of cyclists, pedestrians and cars will be analyzed by the CITIX-AI Evo to understand if the new street design, separating more clearly pedestrians and cyclists will have a better impact.
Do you want to know more on Trondheim's use of count data to support their bicycle development policies?
Watch our full video case study below 👇