Counting Arlington's Biking Boom: 40,000 bikes in May!

(Edited November 18, 2010 -- the ABC video was no longer working, so it has been removed.)

With ABC7 highlighting some of the technology that is used to count more than 30,000 bicycle and pedestrian trips along the Four Mile Run trail, we wanted to share some of the figures from the counter on the Custis Trail. The counter is located here and has the ability to distinguish between pedestrians and bicyclists by means of infrared and in-ground technology. Furthermore, this 24/7 counter can track the time of day trips are made and breaks the final report down into 15 minute increments. Arlington County's Bicycle and Pedestrian Planner, David Patton, manages the counters and provides us with monthly numbers.

For the month of May there were 40,499 bicycle trips past this section of the Custis Trail and 13,322 pedestrian trips. 2010 is the first full year that these counters have been in place so it is particularly interesting to Arlington County planners to get data on how many trips are made. Check out the chart below which shows daily count:

May 2010, Custis Trail Counts (Click to enlarge)

It is of note that poor weather (cold temperatures, rain, strong winds) is reflected in the four lowest volume days of the month.  Also, May 21st was Bike to Work Day and was by far the heaviest day of the month.  

 

For further reading on bike counting technology in Arlington and other parts of the country, including a few quotes from Arlington's own David Patton, take a look at a USA Today article from last month.

 *EDIT - we're not quite ready to release the raw data as it is.  There are a few adjustment factors that need to be incorporated. According to David Patton, "The adjustment factor(s) have to do with the limits of the technology. The counting robots aren't perfect. If two pedestrians pass the sensor at the same time, it may only “see” and count one body. Bikes with trailers confuse the machinery. Clumps of cyclists passing the sensors aren’t always classified by the machine(s) correctly. The way to deal with that is to compare the automated results with manual counts done at the same time and place."  We currently have manually counted data that is being sorted through.  Think of this post as a teaser of lots of great stuff to come!

 

 

  

BikeArlington is an initiative of Arlington County, Virginia to encourage and enable more people to go by bike more often. To stay up to date on biking in Arlington, follow  BikeArlington on Twitter.

Comments

[Fredrik]

This is great news. What have led up to this boom? Although cycling seems to be on the rise, such a boom must have other reasons then trends, right? I come from Europe, so I'm not all that familiar with all the different initiatives and organized events in USA, but I guess the "bike to work" campaign have something to do with this?

I work with a tool meant to help people change their habits and get out of the car and on to the bike (or public transportation), so I find this really interesting.
www.commutegreener.com

[Just161]

Very cool!
1. Can you post the raw data?
2. Can the counter tell the direction of the bike?