When the EU Declaration on Cycling was published in 2024 one of the key commitments was to improve the collection of data on cycling. Now Cycling Industries Europe is part of an expert consortium working on a contract for the EU Commission to establish the most effective methodologies for establishing levels of cycle use across all 27 EU Member States, alongside the amount of cycling infrastructure and provision of services.
As part of the Cycling Counts project we need your help to find out where in the EU national data is being collected and what methods are in use, including industry market research, previously unpublished data sets or those that cover countries which have been studied less, for example those with lower levels of cycling. Ultimately we will recommend the best ways that governments can collect such data in the future, so we need to know the best practices in use today.
Our consortium partners at ECF have already contacted national governments and their cycling contact points about the main official sources of cycle use data, such as national travel surveys or large official surveys on cycling specifically. What we need is the rest!
This includes less obvious national-level data sets, such as national physical activity and health studies that may have picked up cycling as part of much wider scope. A recommendation of how Member States could consistently measure cycle use across the EU will deliver a long-term objective of CIE to help companies and public bodies make better informed decisions about consumer demand.
How you can help
So, has your company commissioned private research into any EU markets? Universities and thought leaders, have you ever studied national cycle use, either on its own or as part of wider transport, tourism or health research? Advocates, can you point us to the national-level cycling and mobility data that you reference for your country other than the official sources mentioned above?
Fill in our questionnaire here to give us an insight into any data sets that you think we should be aware of. Please complete it by 22nd April to give us a first insight.
The scope can include any national data such as transport, tourism, sport, bike and e-bike, adult and child. We ask for this because we know that an overall picture of cycling will be made up of these sub-sets and we want to know if it is possible to correlate between them.
A note about confidentiality
Don’t worry, we don’t want to publish your data or hand over your unique research methodology to third parties, our process will be confidential. At this stage of our research, we want to know what is out there for each EU country and get an insight into the scope and methodologies that are in use. And to help you we would be delighted to give you feedback on whether your data sets are consistent with others that we find. If, when we make our final report, we want to recommend an approach using your method or reference your data we will come back to you for your permission to do so. If you want us to formally agree the use of the data with you there is an option to indicate your requirements in our questionnaire.
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