Impact of Climate Change on Bicycle Count

The use of bicycles is substantially affected by the daily and hourly weather pattern, which is set to change due to climate change. It is therefore important to understand the potential changes in order to accommodate adaptation planning for cycling. The authors propose a framework to model the potential changes in bicycle flow in London by developing a negative binomial count-data model and by incorporating future projected weather data from downscaled global climate models, a first such approach in this area. High temporal resolution (hourly) of the model allows the authors to decipher changes not only on an annual basis, but also on a seasonal and daily basis. The authors find that there will be a modest 0.5% increase in the average annual hourly bicycle flows in London's network in 2041 over year 2011. The increase is primarily driven by a higher temperature due to a changed climate, although the increase is tempered due to a higher rainfall in the future. The annual average masks the differences of impacts between seasons though - bicycle flows are expected to increase during the summer and winter months (by 1.6%), decrease during the spring (by 2%) and remain nearly unchanged during the autumn. Leisure cycling will be more affected by a changed climate, with an increase of around 7% during the weekend and holiday cycle flows in the summer months.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ABJ35(3) Bicycle and Pedestrian Data.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Wadud, Zia
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC
  • Date: 2014-1-12 to 2014-1-16
• Date: 2014

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 17p
• Monograph Title: TRB 93rd Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bicycle counts; Bicycle travel; Climate change; Flow; Mathematical models
• Geographic Terms: Greater London
• Subject Areas: Environment; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Planning and Forecasting; I15: Environment; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01506392
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 14-0429
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 3 2014 9:18AM