Commute activity statistics are based on usage levels between 6am and 10am, full-day activity statistics based on usage levels between 6am and midnight.
Weekday statistics are averaged over the last five working days and do not include public/bank holidays. Weekend statistics are averaged over the last six weekend days and include public/bank holidays.
The statistic used is a normalised average maximum simultaneous usage (MSU) number summed across the systems in each grouping.
The MSU is an indication of, if not directly proportional to the number of journeys undertaken during the period of observation.
Each statistic is individually normalised (i.e. baselined) to the first two weeks/weekends of March 2020 (pre-lockdown).
FAQs
Why not use journey data?
Only Edinburgh provides journey counts on a timely basis, which is why MSU is used to allow for multiple cities to participate.
What about confounding factors?
All bikeshare statistics are sensitive to weather, and leisure usage (i.e. non-commute) is particularly sensitive to weather and season.
Why are the London and UK scores so similar?
London accounted for the great majority of bikeshare baseline commuting usage across the UK, so the London and All UK commuting scores were similar and may remain so, or might diverge if other systems increase in relative popularity.
Why split into only London and Rest of UK?
Many systems are small and not well used, and therefore are sensitive to fluctuations caused by minor operational changes such as rebalancing. These effects can be minimised by combining multiple systems together.
Systems Included
Only systems which have been operational since 2 March 2020, and have had at least 100 bikes available for rent at some point almost every day since then, are included in the summary statistics.
London includes Santander Cycles (Central London) and Freebike. Rest of UK includes Hereford (Beryl), Watford (Beryl), Bournemouth (Beryl), Edinburgh (Just Eat), Glasgow (Nextbike), Cardiff (Nextbike), Brighton (BTS Bikeshare) and Liverpool (Cycle Hire).
London (Lime) is not included as there is no usage data openly available from them.
London (JUMP) is not included in the summary statistics as it had erractic availability during lockdown, before closing in June.
Norwich (Beryl) is not included in the summary statistics as it opened after the baseline period.
Bristol (YoBike), Belfast (Nextbike) and Milton Keynes (Santander Cycles) are not included as they temporarily closed during lockdown.
Created by Oliver O'Brien, Consumer Data Research Centre (CDRC), UCL, 2020.
