Making Bikes Count With Bike Counts (or Audits)

Editor’s Note: This blog was originally published in 2022 and has been recently updated with new resources.  

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Types of Bike Counts

Manual vs. Automated

Manual counts are done by humans and require people to physically show up at a place to conduct counts — imagine a person with a clipboard on a street corner. Automated counts use a machine counter, usually embedded into the street/sidewalk surface or temporarily installed on top of it using tubes or another flexible material. Automated counts can also be collected through video technology, GPS trackers on bikes or riders’ phones, and other evolving technologies. 

Bike Counts Vs. Audits

A bike count is a way to measure ridership at a specific point on a street or intersection by getting the count of people biking there.

A bike audit evaluates an area, road, path, or intersection that takes note of the various aspects of concern or things that are working well for people on bikes. This blog is mainly centered on bike counts, but you’ll see resources relevant to bike audits as well. 

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How to Conduct Manual Counts

What you need to do before a count:

1. Pick the location(s) to conduct your count(s)
   • If you or your organization plan to make bike counts happen regularly, it is important to pick locations that can be consistently tested over multiple years or iterations so that your data can tell a story over time. Doing so can justify an expansion of community bicycle improvements or help you understand where to focus efforts. While many factors make a location good for counting, the top three locations most people target to count are:
     • your busiest cycling locations, 
     • a place where ridership exists, but you want to gather more information,
     • or a place that doesn’t have any bike infrastructure but will soon, and you’d like to do a before-and-after comparison.
2. Decide on the time of day to do the count (morning, noon, or evening commutes are best for manual counts, while automated counts capture anyone at any time)
   • If you are using the count to make the case for bicycle infrastructure, consider what section and when the area in question is most used. Doing counts in the morning, noon, and/or evening commutes to get inbound and outbound traffic is useful to track the peak traffic times. Most counts take place over a two-hour period.
3. Find people to conduct the counts and assign them a time and location. Many communities form a volunteer count group and have the group split up into different intersection sites to cover more ground in less time. Consider offering training for your bike count volunteers, such as the Treasure Valley Cycling Alliance’s bike count program volunteer training.
4. Print or develop a place to record counts. The AARP Bike Audit Tool Kit worksheets, specifically the “Who’s Riding and Why,” are a good resource that you can download for free here.  Another great example is these count sheets from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council of Greater Boston.
5. Give people instructions on how to conduct counts. 

Other things to consider: 

During the count: 

• Make sure to arrive 15 minutes before the count to get set up. Suggested items to bring are a chair, clipboard, water/snack, writing utensil, and a timer.
• Decide before the count how you want to record people who are not on bikes, such as those on scooters, onewheels, or similar variations.
  • Note on multimodal counts: when applying for federal grants under the current administration (like the Safe Streets and Roads for All grant due June 26 at 5 PM ET), our Policy Director advises:
    • Proposals are most competitive when they include data on the movement of all people, not just bike counts. If possible, you’ll want to include road safety data for all users—bikes, cars, freight, pedestrians, etc, and show how projects affect the whole transportation system.
    • The current administration values data that shows multimodal impacts (freight, cars, bikes, pedestrians) and economic impacts (e.g., freight flow, sales tax revenue).
• Be accurate. The goal of a count is to have data reflective of ridership in your community, not to turn in high numbers.

How to Count

• Once the person who is counting is set up at the count location, decide where the screen line will be. Most people who are counting use a screen line as a frame of reference. A screen line is an imaginary line that the person who is counting mentally draws across the road.
• The person counting then counts those (bicyclists, pedestrians, etc.) who cross over the screen line in the allotted intervals in both directions. A good visual of a screen line can be found here.
• Some people choose to set up two screen lines when counting at an intersection. If this is the case, make sure that your counts are well-marked and the person counting can easily see both areas. 

After the count:

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How to Select Automated Count Devices

Many companies offer a variety of devices, including traffic cameras, to do counts, such as Eco-Counter, Street Light Data, Viva City Labs, and Dero. Many automated counters support pedestrian and bicycle counts and have a variety of display options that usually send data directly to an online data portal. When selecting a device, consider where it will be located, the type of information you want to collect, your budget, and the weather the device will face. Most counters can work in extreme heat and cold and can be embedded into the asphalt or attached to street poles, so street cleaning and snow removal can still happen.

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Conclusion & More Resources

No matter why or how you decide to collect bike counts, it is an important part of the bike advocacy process. Having reliable, consistent data will help to tell a story, reflect what is actually going on in a community, and help to make informed decisions backed by data. 

For a deeper dive into more aspects of bike counts, check out these webinars:

• Webinar: Bikes Count on Campus: Using Data To Support Bicycle Friendly Universities
• Webinar: Lessons Learned From The 2022 ‘Bikes Count’ Data Competition Winners
• Webinar: Bikes Count in the Big Easy: A Snapshot of Cycling in New Orleans
• Webinar: Introducing the AARP Bike Audit Tool Kit
• Webinar: Stories from the Field: AARP Bike Audit Tool Kit in Action

Find more bike count resources for communities on our BFC resources page and for campuses on our BFU resources page. Download the FREE AARP Bike Audit Tool Kit and accompanying worksheets at https://bikeleague.org/aarp-bike-audit-tool-kit.