A national non-motorized count data archive, BikePed Portal provides a centralized standard count database for public agencies, researchers, educators, and other curious members of the public to view and download bicycle and pedestrian count data. It includes automated and manual counts from across the country, and supports screenline and turning movement counts. Pooling funds, the data archive was established in 2015 by researchers at Portland State University with project partners at Federal Highway Administration and many transportation agencies. Hau Hagedorn and data scientist Tammy Lee manage the continued development and implementation of BikePed Portal.
Another research project funded by NITC, led by Nathan McNeil of PSU, offers a method for monitoring the quality of this bike-ped count data. "There has been an effort to collect more bike-ped count data in recent years, but it hasn't been consistent in terms of what's being collected and how it's stored. If the data aren't in a uniform format, or aren't stored in a location where they can be easily accessed in bulk, then doing a deep scan of the data would be a challenge," McNeil said.
Researchers at the Mineta Transportation Institute of the San Jose University used BikePed Portal data to examine the consistency between crowdsourced and traditionally collected count data to obtain more accurate bicyclist and pedestrian counts, which is critical to better designing active transportation-related facilities and empowering people who walk and cycle.
Learn more about Biking and Walking Quality Counts: Using “BikePed Portal” Counts to Develop Data Quality Checks and access the BikePed Portal here.