In London, on some kerb-protected cycle lanes, they have large, digital, real-time bicycle counters. Those work really well, and people can see the counter increment. Superb as they may be, those counters costs many thousands of Pounds to install, and requires planning permission. Unless you’re filthy stinking rich, and can afford to finance all that yourself, most cycle lanes will never have such a counter. Crumbs, even if you can afford to pay for it, you might still not get permission to have it installed.
Why are bicycle counters needed?
There are many reasons such counters are needed, starting with obtaining actual data. Without concrete data, people who campaign for better cycling infrastructure are reduced to guesswork. Perhaps your local cycling campaign has lots of people with nothing better to do with their time, other than sitting next to a cycle route, counting cyclists. Most people don’t have so much free time available, and with a bicycle counter in place, you can rely on that instead. Besides, having people do a one-off count is a snapshot in time – what if the route was particularly busy (or quiet) that day?
A good bicycle counter can give you a count in each direction, and tell you the overall average speed, along with speeds of individual bicycles.
Better yet, a good bicycle counter can give you stats over a period of time, allowing you to see if changes to infrastructure made any difference to cyclist numbers. You’d be able to see when the cycle route is busiest, plus more.
Your council says no
Face it, your local council is strapped for cash, and most certainly won’t pay to have bicycle counters installed. Plymouth City Council have a few counters installed, but those are grey boxes, and don’t display any data. Worse still, they refuse to disclose the data, unless you pay them a few hundred, and they claim most of those counters aren’t functional. I’m pretty sure that most of the UK is in a similar position. But there IS an alternative!
The WillCycle WheelCounter
The WillCycle WheelCounter is an open-source bicycle counter that you’ll be able to build yourself. It has two tubes that should be laid across the full width of the cycle path, with the WheelCounter being at the side of the path. The plans are for the WheelCounter to be powered by a 20 000 mAh power bank, internal to the weatherproof enclosure, and it should be able to run several weeks on a single charge. You will also need a SIM card for each WheelCounter you build, as the counter needs to be able to upload the data.
Once I have a fully-working prototype, I will release the plans, with detailed build instruction. I’m hoping to keep the component costs below £80 per WheelCounter.
Alongside, I will also release a WordPress plugin, so you can have YOUR WheelCounter(s) feed data to YOUR website. The plugin will display a map, showing live data from each WheelCounter. As with the WheelCounter plans, the plugin will also be free. Do not that there will be a link to WillCycle at the bottom of the map, and licencing for the WheelCounter, and the plugin, will stipulate that you are not permitted to remove that link. That’s simply so others can find the WheelCounter, if the happened upon your site. No data whatsoever will be transferred from YOUR site, to WillCycle.
For those who don’t have, or don’t want to set up their own WordPress site, I will have the option of hosting YOUR WheelCounter data on WillCycle, with a map that you can embed in your existing site, or with a dedicated page for YOUR WheelCounters, on WillCycle. If you wanted to make use of that, you will have to have a WillCycler subscription, which works out to around 7 pence per day.
If you’re a council
If you are working for a local council, and are looking at implementing bicycle counters, the WillCycle WheelCounter is a phenomenally cost-effective option, and I expect it will be FAR cheaper than literally any other option available to you. Speak to me (simply use the comment form below) and we can look at building you a bespoke solution that works for your council.