Active Travel England - Boardman

Post Reply
Jdsk
Posts: 24636
Joined: 5 Mar 2019, 5:42pm

Re: Active Travel England - Boardman

Post by Jdsk »

"Councils should face down rows over low-traffic neighbourhoods by reframing the debate in terms of livable streets that children can use safely, the head of England’s walking and cycling watchdog has argued as it unveiled its first raft of projects."
https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... s-councils

I can't find the announcement...

Jonathan
Jdsk
Posts: 24636
Joined: 5 Mar 2019, 5:42pm

Re: Active Travel England - Boardman

Post by Jdsk »

"Second cycling and walking investment strategy":
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/ ... -july-2022
includes progress report on CWIS1.

Jonathan
Jdsk
Posts: 24636
Joined: 5 Mar 2019, 5:42pm

Re: Active Travel England - Boardman

Post by Jdsk »

"The UK risks being left behind Europe on cycling growth, experts have warned, as cycle sales are down by a quarter on pre-pandemic levels and electric bike sales are plateauing following a boom in 2020."
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... pe-experts

Jonathan
Pete Owens
Posts: 2442
Joined: 7 Jul 2008, 12:52am

Re: Active Travel England - Boardman

Post by Pete Owens »

And in the very next paragraph:
"Although cycling levels have significantly risen since the pandemic – up 33% in the year to 30 July"
ratherbeintobago
Posts: 974
Joined: 5 Dec 2010, 6:31pm

Re: Active Travel England - Boardman

Post by ratherbeintobago »

Is it also a combination of falling demand (as lots of people have bought a bike in the last two years) with ongoing supply chain problems (as described in the latest Cycling Podcast Service Course)?
Jdsk
Posts: 24636
Joined: 5 Mar 2019, 5:42pm

Re: Active Travel England - Boardman

Post by Jdsk »

I can't find the "market report" from the Bicycle Association. It might be what's paywalled here:
https://www.bicycleassociation.org.uk/market-data/

Jonathan
Nearholmer
Posts: 3927
Joined: 26 Mar 2022, 7:13am

Re: Active Travel England - Boardman

Post by Nearholmer »

I’m not confident that anyone actually knows how much/little cycling goes on in the U.K. year-on-year, although clearly the trade body knows how many bikes, of which kinds, it sells.

Does anyone here know of a truly valid analysis of cycle use, which my instinct tells me would need to be split by locality and by use-type to be truly meaningful?

My deeply non-scientific gut feel is that hardcore hobby cycling (road, gravel, and MTB) continues to increase, if perhaps not boom, and that any fall in sales in that area so far is a function of restricted supply (squeezes on discretionary spending to follow soon), but that more casual leisure cycling and utility cycling are both pretty much stuck for all the usual reasons (motor traffic, lack of secure parking, lack of decent cycleways in many places, hills, and the weather).

I’m not surprised that e-bike sales have hit a plateau (I expected them to fall) because a high proportion of those sold seem to go into “casual leisure” use, where a high proportion will be destined to be ridden “once in a while”, then get sold secondhand barely-used, and there is a limit to the number of people who can afford his and hers e-bikes for occasional use. A high proportion of hybrid pushbikes go the same way, spending most of their time at the back of garages, to emerge on ten Sunday afternoons a year, and maybe e-bikes have abstracted sales from hybrids in that casual leisure sector.
Last edited by Nearholmer on 8 Aug 2022, 6:38pm, edited 3 times in total.
User avatar
mjr
Posts: 20308
Joined: 20 Jun 2011, 7:06pm
Location: Norfolk or Somerset, mostly
Contact:

Re: Active Travel England - Boardman

Post by mjr »

Nearholmer wrote: 8 Aug 2022, 6:12pm Does anyone here know of a truly valid analysis of cycle use, which my instinct tells me would need to be split by locality and by use-type to be truly meaningful?
Data sources include:
· Census Travel to Work Questions: pretty complete but only as far as it goes: a snapshot of commuting once each decade;
· National Travel Survey: annual and all-purpose but not a large enough sample size to break down to very local levels, with some quirks hiding cycling as part of multimodal journeys;
· Active People Survey: annual but with a strong sport/leisure spin that some suspect biases the responses;
· Department for Transport traffic counts: at least annual at most count points and it's national but focused on A/B roads and built-up areas, and only counts carriageway cycling;
· various local surveys and counts and various apps that track cyclists.

Most of these are valid. What they aren't is complete.

(All of the above is when I last checked it, subject to errors.)
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
Nearholmer
Posts: 3927
Joined: 26 Mar 2022, 7:13am

Re: Active Travel England - Boardman

Post by Nearholmer »

Thanks.

The ones I would trust would be the modern version of standing at junctions with a clipboard, counting vehicles/pedestrians/cyclists, but to be meaningful they would need to cover routes, including cycleways and shared-use paths away from roads, other than “big” roads.

It is a difficult (well, time consuming and expensive) thing to measure, because locality and seasonality have such a big part in it, but no sensible attempt to increase cycling can start without knowing the “base line”.
Stevek76
Posts: 2085
Joined: 28 Jul 2015, 11:23am

Re: Active Travel England - Boardman

Post by Stevek76 »

The most robust source for an idea of mode share etc would be properly sampled household interviews & travel diaries such as the NTS. The main limitation of the NTS is it's about 7000 HHs annually across England which means if you're looking at mode share for a moderate sized core city you're usually having to smooth over 3-5 years to get the random error down. And of course that gets worse should you start looking at more detailed cross sections (eg mode share by age, sex or purpose).

TfL and TfGM also do rolling programs of similar surveys (though 1 day rather than the NTS's 7) so estimates of cycling from those sources for those cities are quite good. TfL publish an annual 'Travel in London' report summarising theirs (along with other data). They also make more of an effort to consider 'stages' and not just whole 'trips' in their summary stats so better pick out cycling as an access/egress mode. The NTS does actually record trip stages, it's just that the headline stats don't tend to dig into those too much.
The contents of this post, unless otherwise stated, are opinions of the author and may actually be complete codswallop
Nearholmer
Posts: 3927
Joined: 26 Mar 2022, 7:13am

Re: Active Travel England - Boardman

Post by Nearholmer »

I should have remembered the TfL one, having (a) worked for TfL you years, and (b) participated in it numerous times.
Jules59
Posts: 420
Joined: 16 Jan 2019, 2:34pm

Re: Active Travel England - Boardman

Post by Jules59 »

Jdsk wrote: 8 Aug 2022, 12:51pm "The UK risks being left behind Europe on cycling growth, experts have warned, as cycle sales are down by a quarter on pre-pandemic levels and electric bike sales are plateauing following a boom in 2020."
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... pe-experts

Jonathan
Is that so surprising ?- most people who buy a bike keep it for years before selling and buying another. So you'd expect a fall after a boom.
Jdsk
Posts: 24636
Joined: 5 Mar 2019, 5:42pm

Re: Active Travel England - Boardman

Post by Jdsk »

Has anyone been able to find the actual data on sales?

Thanks

Jonathan
Vorpal
Moderator
Posts: 20700
Joined: 19 Jan 2009, 3:34pm
Location: Not there ;)

Re: Active Travel England - Boardman

Post by Vorpal »

Jdsk wrote: 9 Aug 2022, 7:56pm Has anyone been able to find the actual data on sales?

Thanks

Jonathan
I'm not sure that sales are as helpful as they would previously have been. Imports were limited by supply chain problems

https://www.mintel.com/press-centre/lei ... ain-issues
“In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.”
― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
awavey
Posts: 300
Joined: 25 Jul 2016, 12:04am

Re: Active Travel England - Boardman

Post by awavey »

Jules59 wrote: 9 Aug 2022, 7:50pm
Jdsk wrote: 8 Aug 2022, 12:51pm "The UK risks being left behind Europe on cycling growth, experts have warned, as cycle sales are down by a quarter on pre-pandemic levels and electric bike sales are plateauing following a boom in 2020."
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... pe-experts

Jonathan
Is that so surprising ?- most people who buy a bike keep it for years before selling and buying another. So you'd expect a fall after a boom.
yes quite, I dont understand the problem, unless you are a bike shop association who relies on its members selling new bikes all the time. I dont really think the number of new bikes being sold is the best measure of the UK being left behind here, if demand is still growing, people are happy with the bikes theyve got. Ive not bought a new bike for 7 years
Post Reply