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BIG DATA: 800 CYCLISTS IN

GOTHENBURG HELP COLLECTING

GPS DATA

A research project financed by The Swedish Transport Administration

Anna-Klara Ahlmer, Trivector Traffic AB Sweden

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CYCLING IN SWEDEN IS POPULAR

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There is a new national strategy for more and safer cycling (2017) ‒ Goals on regional and municipality level

On safe cycling

On healthy cycling

On climate friendly cycling

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BUT GOALS REQUIRE FOLLOW-UP

Today travel surveys are being

used

…Or bike-counters, but they are

quite limited

In addition, there is no reliable

data on where and when

people cycle, and also who is

cycling and how fast

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TECHNOLOGY CAN GIVE US BETTER CYCLE DATA

From GPS and accelerometers Big Data can be obtained

And with new ways of recruiting cyclists, using crowdsourcing

However, this approach need to be evaluated ‒ What recruitment methods work ‒ Are data representative?

The purpose of the study was to evaluate a large-scale voluntary collection of bicycle transport data

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Romanillos et al (2016) Big Data and Cycling, Transport Reviews, 36:1

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RECRUITMENT OF CYCLISTS IN GOTHENBURG

SEPT-OCT 2017 Several different methods were used:

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www.goteborg.se/

University + student union

Newspaper interviews

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HOW COULD PEOPLE PARTICIPATE?

Option 1: Connect Strava/Moves account to the project

Option 2: Use the app TravelVu

Questionaire with 4 questions in both options: ‒ Age

‒ Gender

‒ Postal code

‒ Recruitment

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Background data

from respondents

Low response burden

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OPTION 1 DONATE STRAVA/MOVES DATA AT A WEBPAGE

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TRAVEL SURVEYS

BY SMARTPHONES

- A NEW WAY TO MEASURE

AND UNDERSTAND TRAVEL

OPTION 2: DOWNLOAD THE APP TRAVELVU

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HOW IS TRAVELVU WORKING? It’s a travel survey app

Suggests how

you’ve travelled

User verifies /

changes the data

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Overview trips by day The user can adapt mode,

time, speed, distance, activity by tapping on the

element.

Summary of trips. In time and distance.

By day, week and month

Route where the trip took place Location for an activity

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RESULTS

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MORE THAN 800 PARTICIPANTS

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MOST PARTICIPANTS

RECRUITED VIA FACEBOOK AND NEWSPAPER ARTICLES

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21 OOO TRIPS

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More than 21 000 collected trips

Cleaning of data: ‒ More than 19 000 trips

left

Heatmap shows which routes most people take

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RESULT: GENDER AND AGE OF PARTICIPANTS

TravelVu 52 % men

Strava app 89% men

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RESULT COMPARED TO TRAVEL SURVEY 2017

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SHORT TRIPS DOMINATE

Around 50 % of all trips are shorter than 2 km

Around 70 % of all trips are shorter than 5 km

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WHERE DO PEOPLE CYCLE TO?

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CYCLING SPEEDS DIFFER PER APP

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BIKE VS ELECTRIC BIKE

Longer average distance:

we bike further on electric bikes

than on traditional bikes

Similar average duration:

the time we spend cycling with

an electric bike is the same as

with a traditional bike

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Source: sierraclub.org Illustration by Little friends of printmaking.

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CONCLUSION

Recruitment successful

Important to chose the right app(s) ‒ Has an impact on gender-balance and on representativity

The age balance gave few really young and few over 65 years

Trip duration and trip distance for the TravelVu app corresponded to Gothenburgs travel survey from 2017 => Crowdsourcing recruitment method and result is promising

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THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!

anna-klara.ahlmer@trivector.se

erik.stigell@trivector.se

astrid.michielsen@trivector.se

annika.nilsson@trivector.se