Bike counter

A Danish-style digital cycle counter has been installed in Stornoway to tally the number of people using bikes through the town.

The high-visibility digital display at Bayhead shows the number of bicycles passing over a sensor loop laid in the road.

It updates the figure as cyclists pedal past the device.

Funding came from a Scottish Government project aiming for 10% of all journeys taken in Scotland to be by bike.

The counter is one of a total of 14 across Scotland, which relay local cycle information to a master digital totem-pole displaying the counts outside the Scottish Government’s Victoria Quay office in Leith, Edinburgh.

It joins counters in Clydebank, Glasgow, Coatbridge, Stirling, Benderloch, Inverness, Perth, Edinburgh and Dundee.

The figures can be used to see if investing in local cycle infrastructure would be justified as well as providing research for transport planning.

Similar devices in European countries have encouraged more people to cycle more.

Bike counter tracks number of cyclists

20 May 2018