Research and analysis

Cycle City Ambition Programme Evaluation 2013-2018 (HTML)

Published 22 February 2022

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1. £191M to eight English cities for cycling infrastructure:

  • cycle ‘superhighways’
  • city centre schemes
  • mixed strategic cycle routes that combine quiet roads, paths through green space, lightly segregated paths and unsegregated cycle lanes
  • improvements to canal towpaths
  • and a junction treatment.

2. Methodology

  • Impact evaluation of 14 schemes (~25-70% of each city’s grant).
  • Control sites for each scheme: similar route and distance from city centre.
  • Automatic cycle counters and manual count data to analyse: 1) Change over time in cycle counts at scheme sites 2) Change compared to control sites
  • Analysed city-wide changes in how many people and what type of people cycle (Active Lives Survey).
  • Surveys of cyclists on new routes asked about physical activity and health, and how long they had been cycling.

3. Findings

- Cycling increased in all 8 cities between 2012-2019

  • Automatic cycle counters +4-79% (average 37%)
  • Manual counts mostly +25-50%

  • BUT survey did not show more people cycling

  • 5 schemes: increase highly likely attributable to new infrastructure. Increases mostly +14% to +40% vs control sites.
  • 3 schemes: increase likely attributable to new infrastructure. Large increases (+42% to +72%) but unclear control site data.
  • 3 schemes: conflicting evidence across data sources and route.
  • 1 scheme: small increase, slightly less than at control site.
  • Cycling levels continued to grow up to 5 years after new infrastructure was complete.

Improvements in inequalities in cycling. New cyclists more often:

  • female (42% vs 33% existing cyclists)
  • non-white (16% vs 7% existing cyclists)

Differences in physical activity and health:

  • New cyclists less physically active than existing cyclists
  • New cyclists more likely to say the new cycle scheme increased their physical activity
  • New cyclists more likely to say the new cycle scheme had improved their health

Increase in cycling saved at least:

  • 1 million car trips per year

  • 6 million car km per year

  • 1.7 kT CO2 per year

4. Impacts

  • Shaping future cycling policy
  • Fed into spending review bid for more cycling infrastructure
  • Underpin message that cycle routes should be high quality segregated facilities
  • Informing future active travel monitoring and evaluation
  • Informed Transport Decarbonisation Plan
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