Cycling remains at high levels in 2023 edition of EuroVelo Usage Monitoring Report
This year’s report again shows strong figures for EuroVelo as a whole: from 1 January to 31 December 2023, around 10% more traffic was registered on EuroVelo routes compared to 2019. More specifically, usage grew by 11% on weekdays and 9% on weekends. If compared to 2022, usage was rather stable on weekdays (-0.8%), and showed a slight decrease on weekends (-1.6%) – variations that fall in the range of what could be explained, for example, by changes in weather conditions in a particular year.
It is interesting to note that growth in 2023, compared to 2019, was exceptionally high in spring, flattening the seasonal curve and extending the summer peak, even though summer is still the season with the highest absolute number of bike counts. All 12 observed EuroVelo routes saw growth in traffic in 2023 compared to 2019, indicating a consistent trend of increased cycling traffic across the EuroVelo network. Growth was the highest on EuroVelo 8 – Mediterranean Route (+32%) followed by EuroVelo 17 – Rhone Cycle Route (+22%), and EuroVelo 5 – Via Romea (Francigena) (+19%).
More details about traffic on EuroVelo and the 12 observed routes can be found in the report. The report is part of the wider EuroVelo Data Hub, the central access point for the most recent and useful data about the growth of EuroVelo.
The 2023 EuroVelo Usage Monitoring Report is a joint publication of ECF and Eco-Counter. The two organisations have joined forces to work closely together in collecting, analysing and communicating data related to the usage of EuroVelo at the European level since 2021. The aggregated results are based on data from a sample of 195 automatic counters installed by Eco-Counter for its local partners. For this sample, we have selected EuroVelo routes where we found a minimum level of representativity, both in the number of counters per national section of a route (depending on the population density of the country in question) and in the number of countries represented along the route, with data available since 2019 for comparison purposes. This is currently the case for 12 EuroVelo (1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 15 and 17). This year, we were able to add two routes (EuroVelo 10 - Baltic Sea Cycle Route and EuroVelo 13 - Iron Curtain Trail) and 25 additional Eco-Counters to our sample. In the future, we hope to grow this sample and make it more representative, as more counters are placed along EuroVelo routes all around Europe.
Article by Holger Haubold