Using new forms of data to analyse cycling activity

When:: Tuesday 6 October 2020
Time:: 10:00 - 12:00 (BST)
Where:: Online (via Zoom)

The recording of this webinar and related resources are available on our Interactive Data Dives page.

The benefits of cycling have been well examined for several decades. It could reduce car-dependency, air pollution and improve public health. Based on these factors, many local authorities in the UK have implemented several means to encourage people to cycle. However, there are only a few empirical studies that examine cycling activities at the fine temporal and geographical scales due to data limitation. Since only a small number of people cycle, most travel surveys do not include enough cyclists for sophisticated quantitative analyses.

In this webinar, led by UBDC's Dr Jinhyun Hong, we will introduce crowdsourced cycling data and discuss its potential benefits and shortcomings. In addition, we will introduce two examples to show how UBDC researchers have used Strava data for cycling research. This will help transport researchers and planners to understand new forms of cycling data and how to use it for their own purposes. Since data formats are the same for other cities, methods can be transferable to other cities.

In this session, we will:

Discuss the benefits and shortcomings of Strava data for research
Compare Strava data with ground truth data (cordon counts) to see their relationships
Present two empirical studies conducted by UBDC researchers (1: route choices; 2: the effects of cycling infrastructure investments)
Use simple visualisation techniques and analytical models to examine Strava data (during the tutorial)

Session format

The first session from 10:00-10:45 am will be a lecture-style overview on a completed research project (including research questions, data, models and results). Following a 15-minute break, the second session from 11:00-12:00 will be a hands-on tutorial showing how to process Strava data and create a simple visualisation.

What you will learn

Understand the benefits and shortcomings of using the Strava Metro data product for cycling research
How to process and visualise the data
How the UBDC data service can help with your research

Data and software requirements

For the tutorial part of the session we will be using Strava Metro data and the Glasgow city shapefile. If you are interested in finding out more about Strava data and how to access it (subject to signing the End User Licence and agreeing to the specific dataset terms of use), please visit our data catalogue.

For this session, we will be working in R.

Who should attend

Planners, researchers and students who are interested in cycling research should attend.

About the Data Dives series

This series of free online interactive tutorials taking place throughout October 2020, will enable you to dive confidently into urban data science with the help of UBDC researchers and our data collections.

These online courses are delivered by members of our research staff, who want to share their knowledge and advice on working with novel forms of data with you.

Using new forms of data to analyse cycling activity