Weather or Not to Cycle

TLDR

The study examined how weather affects cycling ridership and its temporal patterns in Montreal’s urban bike facilities. Using data from five automatic counters on Montreal’s utilitarian bike lanes, the authors applied absolute and relative ridership models to assess both immediate and lagged weather impacts on hourly cyclist volumes. The analysis revealed that precipitation, temperature, and humidity significantly influence ridership, with a 43–50 % increase when temperature doubles (but a decline above 28 °C and >60 % humidity), rain affecting volumes both in the same hour and up to three hours prior, weekend ridership dropping 65–89 % compared to Monday, summer peaks rising 32–39 % over April, and overall growth of 20–27 % in 2009 and 35–40 % in 2010 versus 2008.

Abstract

This study investigated the relationship between weather conditions and cycling ridership, as well as the hourly, daily, monthly, and yearly trends for use of urban bicycle facilities. A unique data set of cyclist ridership, collected at five automatic counting stations on primarily utilitarian bike facilities in the city of Montreal, Canada, was used. Absolute and relative ridership models were used to analyze the direct and lagging effects of weather variables and extreme weather conditions on hourly cyclist volumes. Precipitation, temperature, and humidity had significant effects on bicycle ridership. After other factors were controlled for, when the temperature doubled, a 43% to 50% increase in ridership could be expected; however, the temperature had a negative effect when it was higher than 28°C and humidity was greater than 60%. The results also showed that bicycle volumes in a given hour were significantly affected not only by the presence of rain in the same hour but also by the presence of rain in the previous 3 h or in the morning only. Daily bicycle volumes were 65% to 89% lower on weekend days than on Monday, the weekday with lowest ridership. This finding confirmed that the analyzed facilities were primarily utilitarian. Further, bicycle volumes peaked in the summer months, with an additional ridership of 32% to 39% with respect to April. Finally, bicycle volumes increased by approximately 20% to 27% in 2009 and 35% to 40% in 2010 with respect to 2008 in the cycling facilities under analysis.