About the Cyclotron

Introduction

The West Midlands Cyclotron is a personal project inspired by the digital cycle counters on the Bristol Road.

It provides near real time insight into the numbers of cyclists using city roads and cycle routes.

Liz Clements, Birmingham City Council Cabinet Minister for Transport says: 'The Cyclotron is a fantastic resource for those of us promoting cycling in Birmingham and the wider region.'

Count Highlights

The top three average cycle counts between February 2023 and January 2024 are:

• the Blue Route (wide, two-way cycle routes which are separated from other traffic wherever possible) on the Bristol Road/ Sir Harrys Road, with an average 501 cyclists a day
• Sky Blue Way in Coventry with an average 385 cyclists a day
• another Blue Route on the A34, Newton Middleway, with an average 284 cyclists a day

Data

Cycle counts are taken from Transport for West Midlands' and Birmingham City Council's machine learning vision sensors. These are primarily aimed at motor traffic but also detect bikes through that machine learning. Most counters count in two directions and both are included.

The sensors are owned and maintained by TfWM and were purchased as part of a grant funded government project. The data is shared as part of TfWM’s Data Insight Service, which collates transport data across the West Midlands on behalf of the 7 authorities (Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, Walsall, Wolverhampton) and TfWM itself.

Design

The design re-creates the idea of individual LEDS making up the characters and charts, the coordinates of each diode calculated and then re-calculated with each animation.

The Cyclotron was built in Svelte, an open-source web framework used by many of the World’s major news rooms for their digital output.

Credits

My thanks to:

• West Midlands Cycling and Walking Commissioner, Adam Tranter, Birmingham City Council and Adaptor Logic for providing access to the data
• Jon Freer who runs West Midlands Cycle Data for his support in checking the numbers and helping with some of the location names
• Open Street Map for providing the map data and route details of over 2,000 cycleways
• The fabulous and global Elevate Data Vis Community for their constructive feedback and encouragememnt

Chris.