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Monitoring active transportation trends

No matter the size of your city, human-powered movement is vital for safe, efficient, and healthy communities.

Walking, cycling, scootering, e-bikes, and more: growing interest in these modes of urban mobility have sparked discussions about how to integrate them effectively into urban environments. Data and trend monitoring reveal what happens on networks of any size, leading to smart, confident, and effective decision-making.
Active transportation USA

How active transportation creates better cities

The many benefits of active transportation for a community include:

    • Economic growth

    • Climate change reduction

    • Improved mental and physical health

    • Reduced traffic congestion and increased transportation resilience

In the US, over 50% of trips are under three miles, an ideal distance for walking, cycling, or scootering. Yet, mode share for walking and biking in North America is only 4%, over fives times less than the global average of 22%.

Much of the uncertainty about adopting active modes comes from a lack of safe infrastructure. With reliable data on usage and behavior, you can make impactful decisions on which facilities to build, where to build them, and for whom. A long-term count program yields benefits for years down the line.
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Examples of key indicators for developing active transportation

A count program can give you several indicators to evaluate walkability, biking trends, infrastructure effectiveness, and more on your streets.

Hourly Profiles

Hourly profile

Looking at volumes by the hour can reveal the "nature" or common use case of a facility.

A "utilitarian" facility is identified when traffic peaks during the morning and evening (commute times), whereas a "leisure" facility peaks in the afternoon and on weekends.

Speed and Traffic

Speed & traffic

Measuring speeds with traffic volumes provides a deep understanding of infrastructure use.

When an infrastructure often experiences high speeds and high volumes, this can be a sign of overcrowding and greater crash risk.

Long-term Trends

Long term trends

Comparing total count volumes by month or by year lets you see clear long-term trends.

This analysis is invaluable when determining the overall state of active transportation facilities and identifying a need for improvement.

Before/After Studies

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Long-term counting reveals the average annual daily traffic (AADT) of a road or pathway.

Once this AADT is known, you can measure the before-and-after of a new infrastructure project. In Montreal, for example, the creation of a bicycle lane resulted in a 2.5-fold increase in AADT!

Modal Share

PROPORTIONS

Knowing which transportation modes people prefer can be invaluable in transportation projects.

With multi-modal counting solutions, determining mode share is automatic. From there, streets can be adapted to better suit the people who use them, leading to more walkable cities, bike-friendly neighborhoods, and more.

Weather Impacts

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Do temperature, precipitation, and wind affect active mobility trends? If so, by how much?

See how weather affects the fluctuations of pedestrians and bicycles on your streets. Then, make sure that your infrastructure takes into account people's behaviors in all weathers.

Cycling Insights and VisitorFlow, two solutions for a 360° view of urban mobility

For a deeper view of an active mobility network, we created an advanced solution that cross-references ground-truth count data with floating data (from GPS, mobile applications, and cellular devices).

With this, cities and communities can see more aspects of their active transportation infrastructure, such as an increase in average distance traveled, origin/destination matrices, desire lines, and number of trips per day.

The two solutions we have are: VisitorFlow, for pedestrian flows, and Cycling Insights, for bicycle analysis.
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Montréal, Canada: using data to manage cycling policy

How is the city of Montréal in Canada, using bicycle count data to manage infrastructures?

Eco-Counter was asked to install several automatic counters in strategic locations, as well as real-time displays to show count volumes to people passing by. Read the testimonials of key decision-makers involved in the project and discover how cycling data contributed to the implementation of their plan.
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Répartition de l'espace physique occupé par chaque mode dans la rue St Denis à Montréal

How we help
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Expertise

At every stage of your project (choosing count sites, selecting counting solutions, using analysis tools, etc.), our teams are here to help.
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Support

Already have a project in mind? Contact us and our dedicated support team will help you get it started from square one.
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Tools

Reliable hardware, user-friendly software, and guaranteed data quality: we provide a complete solution with products and services to get you the best possible data.
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Frequently asked questions

What are the benefits of cycling and walking?

Encouraging people to cycle or walk has many benefits for both the individual and the community, including:

  • Economic growth (1)

  • Improved mental and physical health (2)

  • Better accessibility and equity for road users (3)

  • Higher air quality and lower carbon emissions (4)

  • Cost savings for individuals (5)

  • Traffic decongestion (6)

What is the state of urban mobility in the US?

According to the most recent data, average annual daily walking in America fell 36% in 2022 compared to 2019. Though no data exists for more recent years, there have been shifts in funding towards improving walkability in urban areas, which hopefully have improved these numbers since then.

According to our data, bike volumes across the US increased 2.7% in 2024 compared to 2023 and 1.8% compared to 2019.

Overall, although more and more people understand that active mobility  benefits cities and communities, growth in these modes of transport has been slow. This is likely due to factors such as a lack of infrastructure or accessibility.

How do I know if my active transportation network is good or bad?

Assessing your pedestrian and bike infrastructure can involve both quantitative and qualitative data.

Quantitative data

Quantitative data is used to construct key indicators such as total pedestrian and cyclist traffic, long-term volume trends, average journey time, average distance traveled, and average speed. They can also be used to compare different areas using standardized figures such as Average Annual Daily Traffic (AADT).

Automated counters are a method of collecting this quantitative data. The advantage of automatic counters is that they collect reliable and unbiased ground-truth data, leading to accurate decision-making.

Qualitative data

Qualitative data can also be collected to understand certain qualities of your users, notably through surveys. For example, demographic information, type of bike, or helmet use. That said, there are tools that can automatically collect qualitative data, such as the CITIX-AI Evo.

Going further

Explore related topics and discover how data can be used in each situation:
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Modal share
& space allocation

How wide? Which direction? For whom? Building pedestrian and bike facilities is no easy task and requires reliable data to make the right decisions.
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"Space allocation"
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Vision Zero

Vision Zero is an international traffic safety project that aims to eliminate deaths or serious injuries on road networks. This initiative calls for specific data on vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists.
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"Vision Zero"
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Weather Impacts

The effects of the weather (rain, snow, heat, wind) on active modes are indisputable but often misunderstood. Analyze how weather causes behavior changes and make the right decisions about infrastructure maintenance.
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"Weather Impact"
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