Anzac Bridge cycle count weirdness

[find_bruce]

There is something weird going on with Anzac Bridge cycle count

The RMS cycle count shows steady increases year by year for the Habour Bridge, from 907 in 2007 up to 1,944 per day in 2012. The City of Sydney count shows similar numbers coming off the Harbour Bridge. Similarly Anzac Parade shows a steady increase from 354 in 2007 up to 993 per day in 2012.

In contrast the numbers from the RMS on the Anzac Bridge are

• 2007: 840
  2008: 1017
  2009: 1224
  2010: 929
  2011: 869
  2012: 925

It seems a bit wierid to have a spike in 2009 before dropping back again - it doesn't accord with my experience in riding the bridge & I can't understand why that would be so. Then I noticed the Cityof Sydney count is something like 1,300 or 1,400 per day at Union St & Edward St Pyrmont. I ride Pyrmont Bridge every day & IME more than 90% of cyclists arrive there from the Anzac Bridge. While there are people who come from the Fish markets or along Harris St, there is no way that makes up 35% of cyclists.

I have sent an email along these lines to the RMS & to the City of Sydney, will let you know if I manage to find out whether this some problem with the count or some other explanation.

[george-bob]

the last time i was surveryed coming across the anzac bridge was on the weekend, that was about six months ago and once about 3 months before that, also on a weekend.

has anyone actually seen someone counting bikes on a weekday?

[find_bruce]

has anyone actually seen someone counting bikes on a weekday?

Next time you are riding over the bridge, just to the east of the digger statue you will see wires taped onto the path in a triangular shape - this is the automatic pedestrian & bike counter. It is reported to be able to measure speed as well

[george-bob]

AH, of course! i was wondering about that yesterday.

so, either their equipment is faulty, a lot of people using the anzac bridge are riding on carbon wheels or a lot of the commuters on union street are coming from somewhere other than the anzac bridge?

[rogan]

Riders are learning to bunny hop the cables?

[mikesbytes]

You would need to see some details on how the counts were made, dates, times, day of week and also the weather.

You can email them at feedback@bicycleinfo.nsw.gov.au if you want more details

[find_bruce]

Thanks mikesbytes, I have emailed both the RMS & the City of Sydney. The RMS is currently looking into it & hope to get back to me next week. I have got an interesting response from the City of Sydney

You are quite right to expect rider numbers to be similar due to their locations on a common route.

There are three factors which I think explain the difference. Firstly, the RMS figure is an annual figure and so is an average that includes winter months, whereas the City’s monthly figure is for March, a peak month. Secondly, a difference in what is being counted because the RMS figure is a daily average including weekends and the City figure is only counting weekdays (because we are primarily interested in commuting figures for their congestion relief benefits). Thirdly, the average 2012 figure doesn’t reflect the latest growth – cycling trips have more than doubled in the last three years, with a portion of that growth happening over the last year.

Would you agree these satisfactorily explain the difference? To assist further, I have included a graph of monthly totals on the Union Street cycleway that does include weekends, starting from last March (when counter data first became available) so that you can see the annual trend.

I haven't converted the graph to a jpg so I can attach it, but what the City of Sydney figures provided show is an annual figure of 421,571 bikes, giving an average of 1,154 per day - still way up on the RMS figure

Riders are learning to bunny hop the cables?

Sadly I suspect the truth may be that the cycle count randomly detects cyclists, just like the traffic light loops