The province of Utrecht is an important cycling region in Europe and wants to remain so (Coalition Agreement 2023-2026, Getting started for Utrecht). More and better cycling data are needed to anticipate developments and to be able to control cycling. The Strava Metro database, which has been freely accessible to governments since last year, offers promising tools. The province of Utrecht has carried out a project using Strava Metro to deepen and broaden insight into the use of the Regional Cycling Network (RFN), as a tool for improving the RFN.
Strava utilitarian cycling data mainly represents long-distance commuter cycling
Around 1 in 200 utilitarian cycling trips in the Province of Utrecht is recorded with Strava. From the comparison between bicycle passages at local bicycle counting points and Strava utilitarian bicycle passages at the same locations, a clear/ good correlation is particularly visible outside the urban area. Indeed, within urban areas the variation is considerably higher.
Extra-urban also scored Strava utilitarian relatively high in terms of usage; about 1 in 125 passages were recorded with Strava utilitarian, compared to inner-city where this comes out to about 1 in 300.
The relative over-representation suburban confirms the conclusion from our previous studies: Strava utilitarian bike rides are relatively more often recorded for long bike rides (which are also more likely to occur outside the city), than for short bike rides (which tend to occur within the city). A clarification of the characteristics of Strava-utilitarian bicycle trips becomes clear by looking at which census locations Strava-utilitarian constitutes a relatively high, or a relatively low, share of the total number of bicycle trips.
Within the city, the representation of Strava-utilitarian is highest at counting points that are in logical connection/transit with the bicycle network outside the city, or on long through routes in the city (e.g. the counting points on bridges over the Amsterdam Rhine Canal). The lowest representation within the city is found at all counting points around Utrecht Central Station (where mainly local bicycle traffic is expected to converge).
Out-of-town, the highest representation is visible at counting points located between known long-distance routes, such as: Utrecht-Amsterdam(-Rijnkanaal), Utrecht-Hilversum, Utrecht-Amersfoort(seweg).
Strava-utilitarian cycling trips thus represent a picture of ‘regional cycling traffic’, but within this regional spectrum, Strava also has a relatively higher representation in the +10 kilometre cycling distances, than in the range of 5-10 kilometres cycling distance. Indeed, the average cycling distance is 20 kilometres for utilitarian Strava cycling trips. An additional clarification of characteristics of Strava utilitarian bicycle use is evident from the comparison with different passing speeds at the counting points. Indeed, suburban cycling showed the strongest correlation with local count passages passed at a speed of 25-30 kilometres per hour.
(Strava) sportive cycling traffic constitutes a large proportion of cycling movements at some counting points
The comparison between the local cycling counting points and the Strava sportive cycling data shows that suburban, on a significant proportion of cycle lanes, the representation of cycling athletes is significant. Strava sportive cyclists represent more than 10% of cycling traffic at 18 of the 47 suburban count points, and at six points the percentage is even higher than 20%, up to a maximum of as much as 35% along the N201 (Vinkeveen).So this only concerns Strava-using cyclists; the total share of cyclists will be even higher.
It is reasonable to estimate that on some cycle paths, cyclists make up at least half of bicycle use. This also leads to another important realisation: cycle counters that do not measure carbon bicycles (such as those in Province of Utrecht) will miss a significant proportion of cycle passages at certain points.
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